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REV. JOHN TILLETT AT SIXTY-TWO YEARS OF AGE 


THE IRON DUKE OF 
THE METHODIST ITINERANCY 


The 


Iron Duke 


Methodist Itinerancy 


AN ACCOUNT OF THE 
LIFE AND LABORS OF 


Reverend John Tillett 


OF NORTH CAROLINA 


By A. W. PLYLER 


Editor of the North Carolina Christian Advocate 


NASHVILLE, TENN. 


COKESBURY PRESS 
1925 


w 


Copyricut, 1925 
BY 
Lamar & Barton 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


DEDICATED 
Go the Old Guard 
ofthe Methodist Jtinerancy 


THE SUPERANNUATED PREACHERS 
OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH, SOUTH 


30769 


Becasset 


; AWN 


FOREWORD 


JOHN TILLETT was the Iron Duke of the Method- 
ist Itinerancy. There was iron in his blood. There 
was gray matter in his brain, backbone in his body, 
and courage in his soul beyond what most men had. 

He sprang from the loins of a French Huguenot; 
and into the warp and woof of his moral and physical 
being there was interwoven the dauntless spirit of 
those who came through the fires of hell on St. 
Bartholomew’s Day. 

He spent his earliest years on the storm-swept 
coast of North Carolina. His father was a sea cap- 
tain whose vessels often battled with the waves, 
where two seas meet, off Hatteras Cape. The son 
was sometimes on these perilous voyages and was 
there instilled with the courage and hardihood of 
sailors who brave ocean storms. 

As a young man he was buffeted with adversities 
of many kinds. He struggled with difficulties in 
getting an education. 

But with every contest he was strengthened and 
rendered thereby better equipped for future battles. 

He said of himself that when a young man gaudia 
certaminis—the delights of actual physical encoun- 
ters—so obsessed him that he would have been 
tempted to enter the arena as a pugilist if he had 
allowed the natural man to dominate his career. 

(7) 


} 


30769 


ca, 


8 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


While the deep religious experience into which 
he entered subdued his inclination to physical 
violence, this in no way lessened his delight in moral 
combat. 

Wherever a conflict arose in which the forces 
of righteousness were arrayed on one side against 
the forces of evil on the other, there he was always 
to be found—where the fight was thickest and 
where the deepest wounds were being inflicted. 

One who knew him well said that he was like the 
war horse—he snuffed the battle from afar. 

The thunders of Sinai were music to his ears. 

He did not know the word “policy” in his vo- 
cabulary. His favorite motto was: “Hew to the 
line; let the chips fall where they may.” 

No Methodist preacher of the nineteenth century 
was more rigid in enforcing the discipline of the 
Church irrespective of the wealth or social standing 
of those who violated its rules. 

In a word he was—what we have designated him 
above—the Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER Pacp 

TR PATUTENGIVOEIARS 3.00) .) 1 db Myers fu sid iw Gua a, wa lel ey etaraje ee eelisle 13 

II. At RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE...............- 27 

TEL. ENTERS THE ITINERANCY........0..0..02.008 008 47 

IV. INNER RELIGIOUS LIFE...............-2..6-5-: 65 
V. THE PROPHET WITH A PASSION FOR RIGHTEOUS- 

NESS AND A GENIUS FOR DISCIPLINE.......... 81 

VI. ANEXAMPLE OF HIS METHODS AND HIS PREACHING 95 
VII. THE IMPRESS AND IMPACT OF HIS CHARACTER AND 

ENS BP RA CHING (2) 5 Gus Unie IRN Bie NUL) Crt 111 

VIII. Tot EVANGELISTIC PASTOR.............000000 133 

TX. IN THE CIRCUIT PARSONAGE..............-+44- 149 
X. AN IMPRESSIVE INCIDENT—LOOKING BACKWARD 

ERATE ORUWIATRD Ui alee ALi na iets aaa A) ls 181 

XI. LOOKING TOWARD THE SUNSET..............005 195 

XII. Last DAYS OF THE IRON DUKE................. 205 


RSs ae 
EARLY YEARS. 


The Iron Duke of 
The Methodist Itinerancy 


I 
EARLY YEARS 


JOHN TILLETT, son of Isaac Tillett and Anne 
Tatum Tillett, his second wife, was born in Camden 
County, North Carolina, November 23, 1812. 
While he was quite young his father, a sea captain 
and owner of a vessel engaged in coastwise trade, 
died and left a fatherless boy to enter at an early 
age the school of self-reliance and struggle. His 
mother married a second time, some years after 
his father’s death, and his early years were divided 
between the home of his mother and that of his 
guardian. This fact, and the additional fact that 
his father and mother and brothers all died while 
he was a comparatively young man, will explain 
the absence of details as to his early home life 
which we are accustomed to find in the biography 
of notably useful men and women. 

The lineage of John Tillett is supposed to run 
back to the French Huguenots, where the name 
occupies a noteworthy place among those lovers of 
religious freedom whose annals fill a large and 

(13) 


14 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


honored place in the history of Protestantism. 
John Calvin, when driven out of Paris, found a 
welcome retreat in the home of Louis de Tillet, 
a nobleman in the south of France, and while there 
he wrote his “Institutes,” published a little later 
at Basle, Switzerland. The incident in itself serves 
to put the name high up in the annals of French 
Protestantism. 

To trace a lineal connection between Louis de 
Tillet, or others bearing this honorable name in 
France, and John Tillett, of Camden County, 
North Carolina, has not been attempted hitherto 
and shall not be by this writer. But the Tilletts 
unquestionably offer an inviting field for the genealo- 
gist, particularly in view of certain outstanding 
facts and well-defined traits in the life and character 
of John Tillett—facts and traits that might seem to 
find their explanation, in part at least, in ancestral 
forces of preceding generations. 

There is reason for believing that the Tillets were 
among those French Protestants who, being sorely 
persecuted in France, crossed the Channel and found 
a Christian welcome and a home in England. Here 
the name was anglicized by the addition of a letter 
at the end. From England some of the Tilletts em- 
igrated to America and settled in Southeastern Vir- 
ginia and Eastern North Carolina. 

John Tillett was born and reared about ten miles 


Early Years 15 


from where the Pasquotank River enters Albemarle 
Sound. The fertility of the soil and the abundant 
food supplies in the adjoining waters, combined with 
the slow and easy transportation by sailboat, made 
life in that community akin to the easy-going 
sojourn upon tropical isles. To these enervating 
conditions was added African slavery, John Tillett’s 
father being a slaveholder. 

Yet, with his own neighborhood untouched by 
the breezes of intellectual and commercial awaken- 
ing that were already stirring in many sections of 
our growing country, this Camden County lad 
defies the forces about him and, contrary to the 
habits of the people of his own community, sets 
himself to the task of securing an education regard- 
less of the difficulties involved. 

His childhood home was in the old Shiloh com- 
munity, where as early as 1737 had been organized 
the first Baptist Church in North Carolina, a Church 
that antedated by almost fifty years the Declara- 
tion of American Independence. Yet John Tillett 
went out from the very shadow of Shiloh Baptist 
Church to become a Methodist circuit rider, and 
his circuit and sphere of influence became almost 
coextensive with the entire State. 

Such independence of early environment, com- 
bined with a Puritan spirit that qualified him for a 
place in the front ranks of Oliver Cromwell’s 


16 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


“Roundheads,”’ arouses not only an interest in his 
family tree, but an abiding interest in the man him- 
self. Whence came the iron in the blood of this 
Puritan and Spartan who shall continue to be known 
as “The Iron Duke” among those hardy circuit 
riders that in other days gave added glory to North 
Carolina Methodism? 

The propriety of applying to John Tillett this 
well-known appellation of the famous Duke of Well- 
ington will not be called in question by anyone who 
is familiar with the character and life work of this 
North Carolina itinerant Methodist preacher and 
who is also familiar with the reason why the hero 
of Waterloo was designated as “The Iron Duke.’’ 
The biographer of the Duke of Wellington says: 
“He had an iron constitution and was not more 
remarkable for his personal intrepidity than for his 
moral courage; the union of these qualities obtained 
for him the appellation ‘The Iron Duke,’ by which 
he was affectionately known in later years.” An 
iron constitution, personal intrepidity, and moral 
courage could not have been more characteristic 
of the English Duke than they were of the North 
Carolina itinerant, nor was the Duke more “affec- 
tionately known” than was this preacher whom 
we hesitate not to designate as “The Iron Duke 
of the Methodist Itinerancy.”’ 

At this point seems to be a good place to introduce 


Early Years 17 


a letter that John Tillett, on his return trip from a 
visit in 1861 to his childhood home in Camden 
County, wrote his daughter, Laura, who at the 
time was a student in Greensboro College. His 
home, at the time, was in Rockingham, Richmond 
County, but the letter was written from Henderson, 
the home of his mother-in-law, Mrs. James Wyche. 

The letter is as fragrant as the rose and beautiful 
as an autumnal sunset. 


HENDERSON, N. C., December 19, 1861. 

My Dear Laura: I drop you a few lines that you may know 
I am on my way home from my trip to Camden. I am glad 
I went. I secured the legacy left me and was delighted to 
visit the scenes of my boyhood. I have with me a copy of 
my father’s will, signed by his own hand on his deathbed. 
The will is dated January 29, 1815. I saw likewise two of the 
old servants named in the will: Ben, the one given to me; and 
Isaac, given to my brother William. I was deeply affected, 
and so were they, at our unexpected meeting this side of 
eternity. Old man Isaac is nearly a hundred years old, but 
peart, and his mind apparently unimpaired. I talked to him 
a long time before I told him who I was. His statement 
concerning my father’s will and the time of his death was 
corroborated by the will. He seemed to be delighted to see me. 
I gave him and Ben a dollar apiece, for which they seemed 
very thankful. 

I have with me a few likenesses, among which is that of 
my oldest brother, Isaac Tillett, who is said, by the old negro, 
Isaac, to be very much like my father—though another man 
whom I saw and who knew my father told me that I myself 


was very much like him, - 
2 


18 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


I never felt willing before to have my likeness taken. 
But having felt the great gratification of seeing the likeness 
of my brother now so long dead, I cannot deny to my sur- 
viving family and friends the gratification that may be 
derived from seeing my likeness after I am gone to my grave. 
O that my life may be such that my likeness, seen when I am 
on earth no more, may urge my surviving children to desire to 
meet me in heaven. 

My love to my dear Nettie. Your affectionate 

PAPA, 


One of the two brothers to whom he alludes in 
this letter was swallowed up in a waterspout in 
Albemarle Sound, a mode of death which made a 
vivid and lasting impression upon John, the youngest 
of the three. 

The foregoing letter, written at the age of forty- 
nine, when the predominating characteristics of a 
man’s life have already become fully established, 
shows clearly that strong family ties combined 
with high and holy ideals were the controlling forces 
in the life and character of this remarkable man, 
who not only was able to overcome the adverse 
conditions of his early life, but who to the end of 
his days waged a relentless warfare against every 
force that set itself in antagonism to his conception 
of truth and righteousness. 

When about fifteen years of age John Tillett 
heard, for the first time, a Methodist preacher—an 
incident that proved to be the transcendent event 


Early Years 19 


of all his youthful years. The coveted privilege of 
delivering this first Methodist message to an obscure 
but ambitious country lad came to Rev. George 
Bain, the father of Rev. W. F. Bain, for many years 
an honored member of the Virginia Conference, and 
the grandfather of Rev. E. L. Bain, who was for 
twenty-seven years a member of the Western North 
Carolina Conference, but in 1919 transferred to the 
Virginia Conference. Rev. George Bain was for two 
years (1826-27) presiding elder of the Roanoke 
District, which included several counties in North 
Carolina, in proximity to the Roanoke River, and 
was, at that time, in the Virginia Conference. 

What the preacher that day said about education 
took hold of the eager boy with a relentless grip 
as he sat in the back part of the little congregation 
listening eagerly to every word uttered upon this 
occasion, which was to him of unusual interest. 
The message aroused the latent ambition of the 
youth and fanned to a flame the desire to get an 
education. 

A year or two later he heard Rev. Hezekiah G. 
Leigh, who was the leader of the Conference in 
behalf of Christian education and was the official 
agent of the Conference from 1829 to 1832 in raising 
money for the establishment of a new college which 
the Methodists were proposing to build. 

These messages had led the boy to decide very 


20 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


definitely to get an education, but the painfully 
limited educational opportunities at that time in 
North Carolina made the obtaining of an education 
an undertaking difficult in the extreme for one 
situated as was this Camden lad; for the only schools 
in the State, with the single exception of the State 
University at Chapel Hill, founded in 1795, were a 
few Church and private schools, the latter being 
maintained almost wholly by gospel ministers with 
whom education amounted to a passion. 

Well-nigh all the schools and colleges in the State 
have come into existence since this North Carolina 
boy began his struggle single-handed for an educa- 
tion—for example, Wake Forest College did not 
open its doors to students till 1834; Davidson College 
and Guilford College in 1837; Normal College, that 
a few years later became Trinity College, in 1838; 
and Greensboro Female College not till 1846. 

If North Carolina be judged by the educational 
facilities then furnished, the first third of the nine- 
teenth century was truly the “Dark Age” of the 
State’s educational history. And a full share of 
that darkness rested upon Camden County. As 
late as 1851 Wheeler writes in his “History of North 
Carolina’’: “It is a matter for regret that the cause 
of education is so neglected in Camden.” 

Amid such conditions as these in his home county 
and at the darkest hour of his State’s history young 


Early Years 21 


Tillett approached his guardian with an earnest 
but polite request for some money with which to 
pay his expenses at school, as he was anxious to get 
an education; but the custodian of his dead father’s 
meager estate bluntly informed the boy that he 
could have no money to spend for an education. 

But John Tillett, be it said to his everlasting 
credit, as much in love with education and learning 
as his honest but unsympathetic guardian was 
prejudiced against them, borrowed money, went to 
school, and prepared himself for college. His 
preparation for college was made at a school con- 
ducted at Elizabeth City by Rev. Mr. Buxton, an 
Episcopal clergyman, whose son, the late Judge 
Buxton of Fayetteville, became one of the eminent 
jurists of the State. All through his subsequent 
life Mr. Tillett spoke with deep appreciation and 
gratitude of the debt he owed to this honored clergy- 
man, who supplemented his meager salary as rector 
of the local Church by teaching a private school. 

Debtor first to the Baptists of old Shiloh Church, 
and next to the Episcopalian for preparing him for 
college, not yet a professing Christian, let us see 
what the Methodists can and will do for him. 

Before taking up his associations with the Meth- 
odists, however, we refer to an incident which oc- 
curred during those early years before he left the 
Shiloh neighborhood, which he sometimes narrated 


22 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itimerancy 


to his children and which is worth recording, not 
only as an evidence of his triumph over early en- 
vironment, but also in view of its bearing on his 
later life-long condemnation of the liquor traffic in 
all its forms. It was his first introduction to the 
nature and effects of alcoholic drinks. Some older 
boys of the neighborhood, journeying with him to 
a country store, told him of the exhilarating effects 
of whisky and how much he missed by not drinking 
it. With some persuasion they induced him to join 
them in buying a bottle of whisky, which they then 
went into the woods to drink. When his turn came, 
last in the group, to put the bottle to his lips, he did 
not at all like the smell or the taste of it and drew 
back with only a sip. They urged him to go on 
“like a man” and drink it. “Not so much because 
of their bantering,” he said, “but because I had 
invested a part of my meager and hard-earned 
money in the thing, did I decide that I must, if 
possible, get the worth of my money out of the in- 
vestment; and so I made a second attempt to drink 
my portion of the contents of the bottle.” But he 
was compelled to give it up without getting the worth 
of his money—not, however, until he had taken 
enough to disgust him so utterly with the horrid 
and nauseating effects of what he did drink that he 
made up his mind, not only that he would invest 
no more of his hard-earned money in it, but that he 


Early Years 23 


would touch not, taste not, handle not in the future 
a thing so vile and mean. Nor did he care to go 
with that crowd any more. This seems to have been 
the beginning of his lifelong fight against whisky, 
of which we shall hear much as this narrative pro- 
ceeds. 


II 
AT RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE 


I 
AT RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE 


JOHN TILLETT’s life and work are among the first 
and best fruits of American Methodism’s first 
chartered college; nor did Christian education ever 
have a stronger advocate than he was. We feel 
justified, therefore, in devoting more consideration 
than might otherwise be called for to this period and 
phase of his life and to the college that contributed 
so largely to making him what he was as an itinerant 
preacher. 

Of all the institutions of learning now owned and 
controlled by the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, the oldest is Randolph-Macon College, 
which was first located at Boydton, in Mecklenburg 
County, Virginia, but was moved in 1866 to Ash- 
land, in Hanover County, sixteen miles north of 
Richmond. As early as 1785 the Methodists, under 
the leadership of Bishops Thomas Coke and Francis 
Asbury, had taken out a charter for a school located 
at Abingdon, near Baltimore, Maryland, to which 
the trustees gave the name of Cokesbury College, 
blending the names of Coke and Asbury, the two 
first bishops of American Methodism. It began its 
work in 1787, but was burned in 1795. After an 

(27) 


28 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


attempt to rebuild it in the city of Baltimore, 
which was followed only a year later by the complete 
destruction of the property by fire, Bishop Asbury 
concluded that the Lord did not want the Meth- 
odists to have a college and so discontinued his 
efforts to build schools. 

Other attempts, however, were made here and 
there throughout the country by the Methodists to 
provide themselves with schools and colleges, with 
varying degrees of success, until 1830, when the 
first successful efforts to secure colleges of high 
grade were made by them—one in Virginia and the 
other in New England, resulting in the establish- 
ment of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia and 
Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut. 
The former was first chartered, but the latter was 
the first to begin the work of instruction, due to the 
fact that the latter took over from another institu- 
tion buildings that were already in existence, whereas 
Randolph-Macon started with nothing but the bare 
ground. 

It is perhaps not amiss to state just here a few 
facts that will explain how and why this college 
came to be related to the Methodists of both Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina. Up to 1836 the Virginia 
Conference included in its boundaries many of the 
central counties and all of the northeastern counties 
of North Carolina. The South Carolina Conference 


At Randolph-Macon College 29 


held the southern and southeastern counties (in- 
cluding Wilmington and the region round about) 
until 1850 and also embraced all the central southern 
counties of the State (including Charlotte, Concord, 
Lincolnton, Monroe, Wadesboro, etc.) until 1870, 
while all the territory of the Blue Ridge Mountain 
region belonged to the Holston Conference until 
1890. The State was thus parceled out to Confer- 
ences which took their names from other States, 
until North Carolina came to be referred to by 
neighbors north and south of it in humorous taunt- 
ing pleasantry, and with an air of superior State 
pride, as “a strip of land between two States”— 
while some North Carolina wit, in response to such 
a designation, said that “it was a valley of humility 
between two mountains of conceit.” 

This reproach was in good part taken away, how- 
ever, when in 1836 the General Conference ordered 
a division of the Virginia Conference and the organi- 
zation of the North Carolina Conference, to which 
approximately one-half of the preachers in the Vir- 
ginia Conference as then constituted were, by Gen- 
eral Conference action, transferred. This division 
took place at the next subsequent meeting of the 
Virginia Conference, which was held at Petersburg, 
Virginia, February 8 to 14, 1837, at which time and 
place the North Carolina Conference began its 
separate existence and work as a Conference, The 


30 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


extreme northeastern section of North Carolina, 
however (which included Camden and adjoining 
counties, in which section was John Tillett’s boy- 
hood home), was retained within the bounds of the 
Virginia Conference and did not become a part of 
the North Carolina Conference until the autumn of 
1890, at which time the Western North Carolina 
Conference was organized and that section of the 
State, which up to that time had continued under 
the jurisdiction of the Virginia Conference, became 
a part of the North Carolina Conference. In com- 
pensation for the North Carolina territory just re- 
ferred to being retained by the Virginia Conference 
following the division of 1837, the North Carolina 
Conference was awarded certain Virginia territory 
embraced in the Danville District, on which dis- 
trict, as will later appear, John Tillett had, in 1854 
to 1856, his first and only experience in the office of 
presiding elder. So much of Conference history it 
seemed desirable to give because of its bearing on 
what follows. 

As early as 1826 the preachers of the Virginia 
Conference began to feel the need of an institution 
of learning of collegiate grade, not only for their 
young ministers, but also to meet the needs of Meth- 
odist parents who desired to send their sons to a 
distinctly Christian institution under the control 
of their own Church. This growing desire and sense 


Ai Randolph-Macon College 31 


of need soon found expression in the decision to 
establish a college of high grade. 

Inasmuch as the Virginia Conference, at that time, 
had almost as much territory in North Carolina and 
almost as many members in that State as in Virginia, 
it was naturally desired and decided that the pro- 
posed college should be located at some convenient 
point near the dividing line between the two States; 
and this was the determining factor in the selection 
of the particular spot where the college was first 
located, the small town of Boydton in Mecklenburg 
County, Virginia. 

The fact that Virginia and North Carolina were 
uniting in establishing the college also helps in part 
to explain the curious fact that the Methodists 
should have given to their first Church college the 
names of two eminent public men and political lead- 
ers, neither of whom was a member of the Methodist 
Chureh—John Randolph, of Roanoke, one of the 
most eminent statesmen of that day, and Nathaniel 
Macon, a public-spirited citizen and influential lead- 
er of North Carolina, scarcely less eminent than was 
Randolph. These two statesmen held each other in 
high esteem; and Randolph once said of Macon, 
“He is the wisest and best man I ever knew.” 

If the fact that John Randolph was an old bachelor 
and reputed to be quite wealthy created expectations 
which the Methodists thought would materialize in 


32 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


gifts to a new college which should bear the joint 
name of himself and his intimate associate and 
friend in a neighboring State, they were doomed to 
disappointment. If it turned out, however, that 
the name given the new college did not prove of any 
special advantage to it as a Methodist institution, 
it is also true that the name given it did not prevent 
the college from taking high rank, from the very 
start, among Southern institutions of learning and 
from doing a work for which the Church has been 
profoundly grateful. From it as a fountain have 
flowed streams of Christian culture and learning 
that have enriched and blessed, not only the Meth- 
odist Church, but other Churches also in the entire 
South, to an extent it would be impossible to meas- 
ure. 

It was on February 3, 1830, that the General 
Assembly of the State of Virginia granted a charter 
to the trustees of Randolph-Macon Coilege to es- 
tablish an institution of learning in or near Boydton, 
the county seat of Mecklenburg County, Virginia. 
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees, April 9, 
1830, a committee was appointed to select a suitable 
location for the newly chartered institution of learn- 
ing, and another committee was appointed to secure 
plans for necessary buildings, let the contract, and 
superintend the erection thereof. 

With a subscription list amounting to $20,000, 


At Randolph-Macon College 33 


of which amount $10,000 had been subscribed by the 
citizens of Mecklenburg County, the Board of 
Trustees, with other friends of the enterprise, upon 
a meager four-acre campus one mile west of the town 
began to build the college which for years had been 
the fond dream of many Church leaders in Vir- 
ginia and adjoining States. 

By October 9, 1832, a faculty of five members had 
been secured, and the buildings were sufficiently 
advanced for the college to open its first session. 

In the meantime invitations had been sent by 
the Virginia Conference to the Baltimore, the Hol- 
ston, the Georgia, and the South Carolina Confer- 
ences to join with the Methodists of Virginia and 
North Carolina in this hopeful educational venture. 
The South Carolina Conference promptly and hearti- 
ly accepted the invitation of Virginia, as did the 
Georgia Conference. Consequently, the first stu- 
dent body to enter the new but as yet incomplete 
college in the fall of 1832 had upon its rolls the names 
of boys from Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, and Georgia. 

John Tillett’s name appears among the students 
who entered the Freshman Class at the opening of 
the fall of 1833. 

“The second session of the college,” said a chron- 
icler, “opened September 4, 1833, under favorable 
circumstances. A laboratory and library had been 

3 


34 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


purchased, and the latter had been increased by 
donations. Bishop J. O. Andrew had donated forty- 
three volumes; Judge A. B. Longstreet, thirty.” 
Not an extensive library, to be sure! But quality, 
not quantity, was what was accounted most es- 
sential to a library in those days. 

A few days after the session opened the Franklin 
Literary Society was organized, and among the 
charter members of this society appears the name of 
John Tillett, of North Carolina. The Washington 
Literary Society had been organized the year before. 

The facts as recounted in the preceding para- 
graphs of this chapter show clearly that young 
Tillett entered an institution devoid of history and 
traditions, its building incomplete and its labora- 
tories and library of restricted limitations. The best 
equipment, however, of this college, as it should be 
of all colleges, was its teaching force. Randolph- 
Macon, though subjected to the inevitable limita- 
tions of poverty and the hardships of the pioneer, 
had some great teachers. Who are the men that 
helped to make John Tillett what he was and en- 
abled the college to send into the Methodist ministry 
such a preacher of righteousness as he proved to be? 

Foremost among these was Stephen A. Olin, first 
president of the college. He was professor of English 
Literature in the University of Georgia at the time 
of his election to the presidency of Randolph-Macon. 


At Randolph-Macon College 35 


He did not reach Boydton until January, 1833, 
some months after the opening of the first session. 
Dr. Olin remained with the college till the spring of 
1837, when, on account of ill health, he was forced 
to surrender his work. 

Of Dr. Olin’s work at Randolph-Macon his bi- 
ographer says: “‘ His presidency was a brief but bril- 
liant period in the fortunes of the college. He had 
manifested the highest adaptation to the responsible 
office which he held there. His unrivaled judgment, 
his shining talent, his far-seeing sagacity, his pru- 
dence in administration and firmness in govern- 
ment, and his masterly grasp wielded an influence 
for the highest good of the young men who came 
from far and near attracted by the prestige of his 
name. His genuine love of learning and enthusiasm 
in communicating knowledge formed a combination 
of qualities rarely met with in men of even the high- 
est reputation.” 

James W. Hardy, who was valedictorian of young 
Tillett’s class, gave in after years for publication 
some of his recollections of Dr. Olin. Among other 
things Mr. Hardy writes: 

Dr. Olin left the college of Randolph-Macon in the spring 
of 1837, a few months before the class of which I was a mem- 
ber took their first degree. We waited on him in a body and 
asked him to put his signature to our diplomas, for we cher- 
ished for him a filial affection and felt that his name was in- 
dispensable. Many youthful hearts were sad the day he left 


36 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


college for his European tour. The students met in chapel, 
adopted appropriate resolutions, and appointed two of their 
number to accompany him to the railroad, a distance of sixty 
miles. He was worn down by disease, and we had no expecta- 
tion of seeing his face again. He rode in his carriage on a bed 
and preferred to go with no one accompanying him save his 
faithful and devoted wife. We bade him good-by as children 
shake the hands of their dying father, and we saw him no 
more. 


This man, now forty years of age, who had so 
forcibly impressed the young men under his care, 
drove to Petersburg, Virginia, and there boarded 
the train for his trip abroad in the quest for health. 
By travel in Europe, Palestine, Egypt, and other 
countries of the East, he regained his health, re- 
turned to accept the presidency of Wesleyan Uni- 
versity, Middletown, Connecticut, and eventually 
took his place, in the estimation of competent critics, 
as one of the most able and brilliant preachers of 
world-wide Methodism. 

Who can estimate the influence of that man upon 
the lives of those students, susceptible as young men 
of ambitions and high ideals invariably are to the 
magnetic touch of a great life? The educational 
value of such a life in the training of youth is beyond 
computation. Randolph-Macon and Stephen Olin 
at that time must have been, in educational and in- 
spirational value, about equal to Mark Hopkins and 
his famous log! 


At Randolph-Macon College 37 


Other teachers associated with Stephen Olin are 
worthy of being named in this connection. Martin 
P. Parks, educated at West Point and professor of 
mathematics, was a brilliant preacher secured from 
North Carolina. Landon C. Garland, who suc- 
ceeded Dr. Olin as president, served seven years in 
that capacity, then became president first of the 
University of Alabama, and later of the University 
of Mississippi, and finally chancellor of Vanderbilt 
University, was at this time a young teacher in the 
new college. Edward Drumgoole Sims, a man of 
striking personal appearance like Dr. Olin, was a most 
devout Christian, a fine scholar, and a model teacher. 

Such was the type of men to whom in those first 
years at Randolph-Macon had been intrusted the 
training of the youths gathered for instruction, and 
the discriminating reader will agree that it was a 
good place for young men to prepare for their life 
work. 

Among the incidents of John Tillett’s college days 
which he in later years narrated to his children is 
one that may be referred to here, for it illustrates 
not only his habits, but to some extent his character 
and his conscientious desire to make his time and 
service count for something really worth while. 
Instead of spending his time allotted to recreation, as 
the other students at college generally did, in play 
and games of sport, he took upon himself the task 


38 The Iron Duke of tie Methodist Itinerancy 


of clearing the college campus of the many stumps 
that were left when the trees were cut down to 
make way for the new college and its occupants. 
The grounds that had been selected for the campus 
were at first thick with the original forest trees; and 
although many were left for shade, it was necessary 
to cut down many, and the stumps of these were all 
there to greet the students who, along with John 
Tillett, entered the college in the early fall of 1833. 
Our student from Camden County, North Carolina, 
thought they were an eyesore, and it did not take 
long for him to make up his mind as to how he was 
going to employ his recreation time. It was a dif- 
ficult job, but they had to come up! He bantered 
his classmates to join him in this service pro bono 
collegio, but they laughed at him and went to their 
games. With pickax and grubbing hoe he pegged 
away at his job, day after day and year after year 
(for it was more than he could accomplish single- 
handed in one year’s time), until at length he had 
them all out of the way and the campus greatly 
improved in looks. It does not appear that he count- 
ed the games of sport in which his fellow students 
indulged as “‘worldly and sinful amusements” and 
such as he himself could not conscientiously indulge 
in. He simply felt that for needful diversion and 
recreation some form of useful service could, in his 
case, be found which would furnish exercise just as 


At Randolph-Macon College 39 


healthful to mind and body as the games of sport 
which the average student felt were necessary to his 
health and happiness. 

An index to the serious views of life and the high 
ideals that in those days characterized the students 
of Randolph-Macon may be found in the subjects 
chosen for the graduating orations of the class of 
1837. Note this partial list of subjects and the names 
of the speakers: 

No. 1. Salutatory Address—Latin Oration: On Education. 
By F. N. Mullen, of Pasquotank, North Carolina. 

No. 5. Select English Oration: The Dangers Resulting from 
the Influence of Great Talents Destitute of Moral Principle. 
By Warren Dupre, of South Carolina. 

No. 8. Inquiry ino the Nature and Origin of Conscience. 
By J. L. Clemmons, Davidson County, North Carolina. 

No. 18. Popular Amusemenis. By, John Tillett, of North 
@arolina. 

No. 15. The Influence of Christianity upon Civilization. 
By W. F. Sanford, of Alabama. 

No. 16. Correct and Settled Principles the Only Guarantee 
of a Young Man’s Ultimate Success. By J. W. Hardy, of 
Georgia. 

Sixteen subjects, ranging from “Foreign Immigra- 
tion” through the “Origin of Conscience,” ‘‘ Popular 
Amusements,” “‘The Fine Arts,” “Christianity and 
Civilization,” to ‘Female Education,” provided 
a long, varied, and substantial bill of fare for a com- 
mencement audience. 

Whether there were giants or not in those days 


40 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


among the orators we have little means of knowing, 
but among the hearers there must have been giants 
in power of intellectual endurance to be able to live 
through sixteen of these orations that taxed the 
auditors with so great a variety of ponderous sub- 
jects. 

But that was an age unspoiled by moving pictures, 
light opera, and lecturers whose chief function is to 
create a laugh. Auditors accustomed to sermons two 
and three hours in length could, with becoming 
patience, listen to sixteen college graduates, with 
their superior wisdom, discuss the great questions 
of the day and of the ages. 

“Popular Amusements”’ was the subject discussed 
by John Tillett on his graduation day, and to the 
end of his ministry this continued to be one of the 
great themes of his preaching. In his attitude toward 
this subject he was at all times and upon every oc- 
casion a Puritan of the Puritans. 

The degree of Bachelor of Arts was conferred 
upon him, with other members of the class, on June 
21, 1837, and the degree of Master of Arts in 1840. 
The M.A. degree came to him in accordance with 
the following college regulation: ““No A.M. degree 
course is prescribed, but all A.B. men can claim the 
A.M. degree who can show that they have continued 
their studies or pursued professional studies for 
three years.” 


Ait Randolph-Macon College Al 


The youth who came out of a remote Baptist 
country community in Camden County to a Meth- 
odist college had been influenced by two Methodist 
preachers to take this step. One of these men was 
Rev. George Bain, the first Methodist that the lad 
had been privileged to hear preach, to whom refer- 
ence has already been made; and the other was Wil- 
liam Elliott, a useful local preacher of his old home 
community. At college he came under the direct 
and evangelistic gospel messages of another Meth- 
odist preacher, Rev. W. B. Rowzie. 

In the year 1834 this eminently useful and saintly 
man, who was in later years financial agent and for 
some time chaplain of the college, but at that time 
pastor of the Greenville Circuit, Petersburg Dis- 
trict, held a revival meeting at the college, and dur- 
ing that series of services John Tillett among others 
was converted and joined the Church. 

His plans up to this time had been to complete his 
education at college and then study law. But with 
his conversion and his joining the Church there came 
a change of plans for his life’s work. He felt called 
of God to preach and, in consequence of that call, 
turned from the law to the Christian ministry. 

This turning from the law to the ministry after 
his conversion could not be attributed to any notion 
of his that the law is not a fit profession for a religious 
man. For two of his sons, with his full approval, 


42 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


became lawyers, and because of their sterling charac- 
ters and their standing in that honorable profession 
became the peculiar pride and joy of his old age. 

Considerations of an entirely different sort led to 
his change of plans. First among these deciding 
factors was his certain and direct call of God to the 
work of a gospel minister. God had called him, 
and he dared not refuse the call. And to one looking 
across the years it appears to have been a call to a 
specific task. God, at that time, needed in North 
Carolina at least one Elijah who could for fifty years 
wage an unceasing warfare upon liquor-making, 
liquor-drinking, gambling, and all other social evils 
alarmingly prevalent in those days. Few men, 
either by nature or by training or by grace, are 
qualified for such an herculean task. But God found 
such a man in the Camden County lad who was bor- 
rowing money to pay for the privilege of sitting at 
the feet of Stephen Olin and his colaborers, and he 
laid his hand upon him and made him a minister 
of righteousness, to serve a generation of men and 
women that greatly needed the message he brought 
them. 

Men of smaller caliber and with less tonnage of 
iron in their blood could with success practice law, 
but they could not do the work that God had mapped 
out for this elect reformer and prophet of God. So 
the Lord took John Tillett from his intended law 


Ai Randolph-Macon College 43 


office, in the shadow of some county courthouse, 
and made of him an itinerant Methodist preacher, 
who was destined to become as valiant a knight of the 
saddlebags as ever drew lance on a field of battle. 

This Randolph-Macon student already had from 
heaven his accredited credentials to preach the gospel 
and to battle with the forces of unrighteousness, 
but in his junior year at college the Church placed 
in his hands the parchments from the properly con- 
stituted ecclesiastical authority. This license to 
preach is dated 1836 and is signed by Lewis Skid- 
more, presiding elder of the Petersburg District. 
Fifty-four years later in the city of Charlotte he, 
in death, surrendered his commission without a 
stain upon his escutcheon. 

All honor to Randolph-Macon College for what 
it did for John Tillett; for without its aid the Camden 
County lad from the lowlands of North Carolina 
could never have been transformed into “‘The Iron 
Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy.” We do not 
wonder that his appreciation of what his Alma Mater 
did for him led him later to give two of his own sons 
the benefits of collegiate training at this institution 
of learning, 


Til 
ENTERS THE ITINERANCY 


14) 
ENTERS THE ITINERANCY 


JOHN TILLETT, just out of college, was in debt for 
his education; for it had taken all that he had in- 
herited from his father and more to meet his expenses 
while pursuing his studies. As hundreds of other 
young men had done under similar circumstances, he 
turned to the schoolroom for employment. He 
first taught school in Clemmonsville, Forsythe 
County, North Carolina. After ten months of suc- 
cessful work in Clemmonsville and six months in 
the neighboring town of Mocksville, the young 
schoolmaster entered upon his long and remarkable 
career as an itinerant Methodist preacher. 

Sixteen months in the schoolroom had enabled 
him, by close economy, to get rid of the debts in- 
curred at college; and now, free from debt, he was 
at liberty to assume the life of perpetual poverty 
imposed upon a Methodist circuit rider. No vow 
of poverty on the part of the individual was re- 
quired; for the Church, under the leadership of 
Bishop Asbury, had fixed that matter by making the 
stipend of an unmarried preacher the impressive 
sum of one hundred dollars a year; and to the mar- 
ried man was given the same unquestioned assurance 

(47) 


48 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


of an enforced poverty—one hundred dollars addi- 
tional being added for the wife, and fifty dollars for 
each child. 

Peter Stuart Ney,* who taught a private school 
in the neighborhood, in conversation with his young 
associate in the teaching profession remarked one 
day: “‘Do you mean to say that you are going to 
quit a six-hundred-dollar job, with prospects of an 
increase in salary, to become a Methodist preacher 
at asalary of one hundred and fifty dollars? You are 
either crazy or an unmitigated fool!” Frenchman 
that he was, he did not understand a thing like this. 

But John Tillett did not permit the dollar to 
count a feather’s weight in turning him from the 
task to which he believed that God had called him. 


*A curious story was long in circulation concerning this 
rather mysterious and unique country school-teacher. Peter 
Stuart Ney was a Frenchman of distinguished bearing and 
impressive military mien who, as above stated, taught school 
in the same community where John Tillett was teaching, and 
for some months they were fellow boarders in the same house. 
He resembled, to a remarkable degree, it is said, the pictures 
of the famous Marshal Ney of France, who, it will be re- 
membered, after a most remarkable and brilliant military 
career in the French army, fell into disrepute with the French 
government and was tried by court-martial and condemned 
to be shot, which sentence was executed on December 7, 
1815. A curious story got started in the neighborhood 
where Mr. Ney taught to the effect that he was the real 
Marshal Ney, who was supposed to have been shot, but who 


Enters the Itinerancy 49 


Life to him was not measured by money or any 
other material standard. Consequently he continued 
and consummated his plans to join the Conference 
at its approaching session and thus “played the 
fool’ in the judgment of this school-teacher from 
France who, whether he was the real Marshal Ney 
or not, evidently did not have in his veins that 
Huguenot blood which, even to the third and fourth 
generation, has power to make moral heroes and 
“Tron Dukes.” 

At a Quarterly Conference held at Mount Sinai 
Church, on the Mocksville Circuit, the young 
school-teacher on October 27, 1838, obtained a 
recommendation to the Annual Conference for ad- 
mission on trial into the traveling connection. 


was really, according to this story, not executed, but simply 
feigned death; and by connivance with those who were sup- 
posed to have shot him, he escaped, came to America, and 
settled in this retired section of North Carolina, where he 
was under promise to live out his days incognito and not be- 
tray those who, though ordered to shoot him, had really 
spared his life. This French schoolmaster was very reticent 
about the matter when sober; but whenever he imbibed too 
freely of alcohol, which he did ever and anon, he would mount 
his horse and, riding military style, would pose as Marshal 
Ney. It caused no little comment. Rev. James A. Weston, 
an Episcopal clergyman, it will be recalled, wrote a book to 
prove that this man was the real Marshal Ney, in which 
volume this modern myth finds curious, impressive, and inter- 
esting interpretation as veritable history. 


4 


50 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


“Mount Sinai Church!” What an honor to it 
now, that it reeommended this young school-teacher 
to the Conference for admission to the ranks of the 
itinerant Methodist ministry! From ‘‘ Mount Sinai” 
went forth one Moses; and now from this “‘ Mount 
Sinai” goes forth another leader. Three months 
later he was on hand at Salisbury, where the North 
Carolina Conference met, January 30, 1839, and was 
received on trial as an itinerant Methodist preacher. 
With this as a beginning he attended without a 
break forty-six consecutive sessions of the North 
Carolina Conference. 

The Conference at Salisbury was the second ses- 
sion of the North Carolina Conference, as separate 
and distinct from the Virginia Conference, to which 
its preachers and territory had belonged up to the 
session of 1837, when the last joint session was held 
at Petersburg, Virginia. 

The statistics for that year show six districts—the 
Raleigh, New Bern, Washington, Danville, Salis- 
bury, Greensboro—and forty-seven pastoral charges, 
with a total membership of fifteen thousand, seven 
hundred and nineteen. The net gain in membership 
for the preceding year is given at four hundred and 
seven. Among the leaders of the Conference at 
that time were Moses Brock, James Reid, and Peter 
Doub. 

“‘Tredell Circuit, John Tillett.” 


Enters the Itinerancy 51 


So the presiding bishop announced in reading the 
appointments at the close of the Salisbury Con- 
ference in 1839. 

The Iredell Circuit, with seven hundred and 
twenty white members and a hundred and four 
colored members, was the second largest circuit in 
the Conference. The Stokes Circuit, with eight 
hundred and sixty-four white and forty-eight colored 
members, stood at the head numerically. These 
figures show that upon the inexperienced young 
preacher had been placed a tremendous responsibili- 
ty; for the most important and difficult work given 
to pastors in those days was not the stations, which 
were all small, but the large circuits. This circuit 
covered an extensive stretch of territory, the day of 
compact circuits having not yet arrived. 

The Iredell Circuit, big both from the viewpoint 
of area and of numbers, embraced a section of coun- 
try where Dr. James Hall had proved himself a 
master workman for his Lord, as he ministered to the 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who had been influential 
among the first settlers of Iredell County. In addi- 
tion to eminent Presbyterians who had wrought well 
in that section of the State, the Methodist circuit 
riders, for sixty years, had gone preaching, building 
churches, and establishing camp meetings where the 
great preachers of Methodism were accustomed to 
assemble, 


52 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


The young preacher who had been sent to the 
Iredell Circuit from the Salisbury Conference could 
hardly be expected to turn the world upside down 
in that particular section, even though he was— 
what was rare in the Conference in those days—a 
college graduate. But he did deport himself in such 
a manner that seven years later there was a demand 
for him to return, and he was returned to this charge 
for a term of two years; and then, after an absence 
of sixteen years, he was sent yet again to the Iredell 
Circuit, where he remained two years. A most 
remarkable record was this, for a man who never 
sought popular favor. 

Forty years ago the old Methodist people of Iredell 
County, as was their custom, would sit around the 
fireside through the long winter evenings in their 
country homes and talk about the circuit riders of 
other days. Fresh in the memories of thuse people 
were the names of ministers not a few who labored 
among them, but the mention of one name among 
all the rest, as if by some magic touch, always struck 
fire. That was the name of John Tillett. His 
ministry was oftenest recalled because he, beyond 
all others, had given Methodist people to understand 
that they must be Christians not by spells and in 
spots, but all the time, all over and everywhere; 
and this meant as he interpreted Christianity and 
Methodism that they must obey the rules of the 


Eniers the Itinerancy 53 


Church, that they must pay their debts, must not 
play cards, or gamble, or dance, or go to circuses, 
and—more important if anything than these—that 
they should neither make, nor sell, nor drink alcoholic 
and intoxicating liquors. 

While his preaching was not lacking in the exposi- 
tion of Scripture and in the proclamation of the 
great cardinal doctrines of Christianity, it was his 
outspoken condemnation of the things just referred 
to that caused his sermons to be talked about in the 
community and remembered long after he had moved 
to another pastoral charge. 

From the Conference which met in New Bern on 
January 29, 1840, the young circuit rider, having 
completed his first year on trial, was sent to the 
Tarboro Circuit, where he served until December 
of the same year, when, for the first time, the Con- 
ference assembled in annual session before the Christ- 
mas holidays, and not, as hitherto, in January or 
February; and this earlier date for the North Caro- 
lina Conference has continued from that time to 
the present. The Conference met in Mocksville on 
December 23, 1840, and John Tillett thus, by a 
happy coincidence, had the pleasure of revisiting 
the locality where he had taught school and where 
the Mocksville Circuit Quarterly Conference at 
“Mount Sinai Church” had recommended him for 
admission on trial. At this session of the Conference 


54 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


he was received into full connection and was or- 
dained a deacon by Bishop Thomas A. Morris. 

In the minutes of that session of the Conference 
there is an entry stating that “J. T. Brame, Gaston 
E. Brown, John Tillett, and William H. Barnes 
were severally examined before the Conference, 
received into full connection, and elected to the office 
of deacons.” 

From this Conference John Tillett was sent to the 
Beaufort Circuit. After seven years from the date 
of his departure for college, he had gotten back to the 
fish and oyster country and was now stationed not 
a great distance from where he was reared. 

In 1840 there were sixty members of the North 
Carolina Conference, of whom forty-six were married. 
Twelve of the married men had homes and farms 
where their families lived and provided for them- 
selves no little of their living expenses. The entire 
Conference, at that time, had only two parsonages; 
and according to James W. Reid, one of the Confer- 
ence leaders, the unmarried men were more popular 
than the married men, because not so burdensome 
to their respective charges. 

This was not an inviting prospect for men with 
growing families, or for unmarried men with matri- 
monial inclinations. And such inclinations have 
been quite common with Methodist preachers from 
the beginning, in spite of good Bishop Asbury’s 


———=- 


Enters the Itinerancy 55 


example and emphatic injunctions to the contrary. 
Asbury might lift up his voice in lamentation and 
cry, “The devil and the women are about to get all 
my preachers!’ But those same preachers went 
right ahead with their practical protest against the 
Roman Catholic doctrine of the celibacy of the 
clergy.* 

Cupid is not a diligent student of finance; neither 
does the little unclad and winged god give much 
heed to the wherewithal with which one shall be 
clothed and fed. Consequently, let us not even 
feign surprise when told that the pastor of the Beau- 
fort Circuit had on October 6, 1841, just three weeks 
before the Annual Conference assembled in Raleigh. 


*In the first period of American Methodist history un- 
married men, untrammeled by family ties, were much more 
available for and useful in itinerant ministerial service than 
were married men. The Bishop, therefore, did not welcome 
at the session of a conference the announcement that such 
and such a young minister had been married or was soon to 
be married. It occurred, at one session of a certain Confer- 
ence, presided over by Bishop Asbury, that announcement 
was made concerning several of the ministers in turn that, 
because of marriage, they would have to locate; and the yet 
more serious announcement was also made of man after man 
that he had fallen into sin and been expelled from the minis- 
try. At length the Bishop, being unable to receive longer 
in silence these announcements, exclaimed: “Brethren, it 
looks like the devil and the women are going to get all my 
preachers!”’ 


56 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


yielded to Cupid’s call and himself made the great 
adventure. 

His bride was Miss Elizabeth Jenkins Wyche, 
the daughter of James Wyche,* the first president 
of the old Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, which was 
one of the first railroads constructed in the State of 
North Carolina. It is now a part of the extended 
Seaboard Air Line System. She was one of twelve 
children, ten sons and two daughters, all of whom 
grew to maturity. One of these sons was Rev. Ira 
T. Wyche, a well-known and most useful member of 
the North Carolina Conference, who joined the Con- 
ference only one year in advance of his future broth- 


*There is good reason for believing that Mr. Wyche was 
not at all enthusiastic over his daughter’s marrying an itin- 
erant Methodist preacher. He doubtless knew far more of 
the hardships of an itinerant preacher’s life than did his 
daughter. Mrs. Eliza Wyche Tillett entertained her husband 
and children, in later years, with an account of how two young 
Methodist preachers were visiting her and pressing their 
suit at one and the same time and how she went to her father 
for advice and received, in return, nothing more than the 
laconic reply, ‘‘EHither or neither!’ This left her just where 
she was before, and she had to decide the question for herself. 
She decided in favor of the Randolph-Macon graduate; but 
within a year or two thereafter she saw the rejected suitor 
most happily married to a deeply consecrated young woman, 
who became a very ‘‘mother in Israel,”’ her only son becoming 
a minister and an honored member of the North Carolina 
Conference. 


Enters the Itinerancy 57 


er-in-law. The Wychefamily home was on Tar River 
in Granville County, though official duties neces- 
sitated Mr. Wyche’s spending much of his time in 
the city of Raleigh, where he died in May, 1845. 
North Carolina owed much to this modest but public- 
spirited citizen. Itis our information that his nu- 
merous descendants have with but few exceptions been 
Methodists. 

For a girl accustomed to every comfort of a good 
home, to join her fortunes with a young Methodist 
preacher, in a Conference with only two parsonages, 
neither of which he could hope, for a single moment, 
to have for his own home, and with a salary so meager 
that the miserable allowance should be called a 
piteous makeshift rather than a salary, was, to put 
it as mildly as words will allow, taking a considerable 
risk, But the matrimonial ventures of young women 
have been, in every age of the world’s history, one 
of the unfathomable mysteries of the sex. 

John Tillett, however, proved a good risk, and 
Elizabeth Wyche was in every way worthy of her 
husband. For twenty-one years they walked to- 
gether with the glow of youthful love in their hearts 
and the warmth of an undying affection aflame about 
the rugged and thorny pathway of their journey. 
No efforts at ostentation marked their married life, 
but through all the years the companionship of the 
one was unspeakably precious to the other. When- 


58 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


ever there came a forced separation, however brief, 
the letters passed with beautiful frequency. He was 
one Methodist preacher who did not care to be a 
presiding elder (he served as presiding elder but two 
years, asking then to be relieved), because the duties 
of the office would compel him to remain away from 
home so much of the time. Greater love than this 
(renouncing the presiding eldership) hath no itinerant 
preacher for wife and children, Methodist preachers 
themselves being judges! 

He cherished no ambition or aspiration for ec- 
clesiastical preferment. It might possibly have been 
better for the Church if he had not shrunk so from 
positions of leadership and official responsibility. 

With the completion of his probation in Confer- 
ence and his marriage to the elect young woman 
who, from the very outset, was to prove herself an 
ideal Methodist preacher’s wife, John Tillett had 
entered, fully equipped, the high and holy work of 
an itinerant Methodist preacher. 

A list of the pastoral charges which he served, 
with the date of his appointment to each, is appended 
at the end of this chapter. The names of places and 
figures cannot tell the story of a human life with its 
joys and its sorrows, its toils and its triumphs, but 
even these imperfect symbols of location and 
measurement, in this case, become impressive, es- 


Enters the Itinerancy 59 


pecially to one blessed with the gift of imagination 
to take in the scope of their suggestions. 

It is an impressive spectacle to see a Conference 
of itinerant prea-hers waiting in reverent and at- 
tentive silence to receive their marching orders from 
a Methodist bishop at the close of an Annual Con- 
ference. Few, if any, more loyal and obedient sons 
of the itinerant host have ever gone forth to spread 
scriptural holiness over these lands than John Tillett. 
When Saul of Tarsus, after his conversion, inquired, 
“Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” the answer 
came: “‘Arise and go to Ananias, the divinely ap- 
pointed officer of the church, and he will tell thee 
what thou shalt do. His answer is my answer.” 
To this North Carolina itinerant preacher, who for 
well-nigh half a century went annually to the great 
Head of the Church, as the Annual Conference 
season came around, and prayed that he might be 
divinely appointed to his work, there ever came the 
same (to him) confident and satisfying answer: 
“Go to the bishop and his cabinet, and what they 
bid you do, that do!’”’ 

And by faith he went forth, not knowing what 
awaited him, save that God would be with him and 
give him a man’s full work, whithersoever he was 
sent. 


APPOINTMENTS OF JOHN TILLETT 


Date of Conference Place of meeting Appointment 
January 30, 1839....Salisbury.... Iredell Circuit 
January 29, 1840....Newbern.... Tarboro Circuit 
December 23, 1840... Mocksville... Beaufort Circuit 


October 27,1841..... Raleigh..... Plymouth and Tarboro 
October 26,1842..... Louisburg. . .Smithfield Circuit 
October 25, 1843..°..Halifax.. ....Granville Circuit 


December 4,1844....Pittsboro....Granville Circuit 
December 3,1845.. .. Washington. . Halifax (Va.) Circuit 
December 2, 1846....Newbern. .. . Iredell Circuit 
December 1, 1847.. -Greensboro. . Iredell Circuit 
November 22, 1848. ‘Danville, Va. Mocksville Circuit 
November 28, 1849. .Oxford...... Mocksville Circuit 
November 13, 1850.. Warrenton. . Davidson Circuit 
November 25, 1851. .Salisbury.... Davidson Circuit 
November 3, 1852... Louisburg .. .Smithfield Circuit 
November 9, 1858... Raleigh..... Smithfield Circuit 
November 15, 1854. . Pittsboro. .. . Danville District 
November 14, 1855. . Wilmington. . Danville District 
November 12, 1856. .Greensboro. . Henderson and Clarksville 
December 2,1857 ...Goldsboro . .. Henderson and Clarksville 
December 8, 1858 ... Newbern ....Haw River Circuit 
December 14, 1859.. Beaufort ... .Haw River Circuit 
December 5, 1860. . “Salisbury .. .... Rockingham Circuit 
December 4, 1861..Louisburg . ..Rockingham Circuit 
December 8, 1862.. ‘Raleigh Bahia Person Circuit 
December 2, 1863...Greensboro.. . Person Circuit 
December —, 1864..Mocksville.. . Iredell Circuit 
December —, 1865.............. Tredell Circuit 
November 7, 1866. . Fayetteville. .Granville Circuit 
November 27, 1867. Wilmington. .Granville Circuit 
December 2, 1868. . Statesville... .Granville Circuit 
November 24, 1869. Newbern .... Durham Circuit 
November 23, 1870. Greensboro. . Durham Circuit 
November 29, 1871. Charlotte... . Robeson Circuit 
December 4, 1872...Fayetteville. Robeson Circuit 
December 10, 1873..Goldsboro. . . Yanceyville Circuit 
December 2, 1874...Raleigh..... Yanceyville Circuit 
December 1, 1875...Wilmington. . Pittsboro Circuit 
November 29, 1876. Greensboro. . Carthage Circuit 
November 28, 1877 .Salisbury.... Carthage Circuit 
November 27, 1878. Charlotte... .Bladen Circuit 
December 3, 1879...Wilson...... Bladen Circuit 


December 1. 1880. ..Winston..... Alamance Circuit 
November 23, 1881. Durham..... Alamance Circuit 
December 6, 1882...Raleigh..... Alamance Circuit 


November 28, 1883. Statesville...Alamance Circuit | 

November 26, 1884. Wilmington. . Pleasant Garden Circuit 
November 25, 1885. Charlotte... .Pleasant Garden Circuit 
December 1, 1886... Reidsville , . .Superannuated 


(60) 


Enters the Itinerancy 61 


And so on through 1887, 1888, and 1889 to July 17, 1890, the 
date of his death. When the Western North Carolina Con- 
ference was organized in 1890, its bounds being fixed by the 
General Conference in May of that year, the new Conference 
automatically took in all the preachers residing within its 
bounds. As John Tillett was then making his home with his 
son, Mr. Charles W. Tillett, in Charlotte, he became under 
the law a member of the new Conference, though he died 
before the first session was held. He was taken sick just 
before the convening of the North Carolina Conference at 
Charlotte in 1885 and did not attend that session. Although 
he was continued as pastor of the Pleasant Garden Circuit for 
1885-86, his health was such that he was able to do but little 
if any preaching that year; and at the Conference which met 
in Reidsville in 1886 he was placed on the superannuate 
list. The last session of the Annual Conference which he 


attended was that held at Wilmington in November, 1884. 
A mere glance at these various pastorates which he filled 


during the half century of his itinerant life will show how 
fitting it is to describe him as a typical Methodist “‘circuit 
rider’ of the nineteenth century. In his day the possession 
of ‘‘saddle bags’ and a “‘sulky”’ constituted a necessary part 
of a Methodist itinerant’s equipment for service. 


} IV 
INER RELIGIOUS LIFE 


IV 
INNER RELIGIOUS LIFE 


_ His conversion and call to preach marked an 
epoch in the life of John Tillett. The earnest and 
serious-minded youth had, as we have previously 
noted, expected upon the completion of his college 
course to study law. These plans, however, were 
entirely changed after God called him to preach, 
and the prospective lawyer became a minister of the 
gospel. 

But those spiritual experiences through which he 
passed while in college touched more deeply than a 
change of plan in his life work. They marked the 
beginning of a long and persistent search after 
holiness of heart, without which no man can see God. 

From childhood a good conscience had been his 
guide, but his conversion gave an added sensitive- 
ness to that conscience which to the end of his days 
ruled him with unquestioned supremacy, and some- 
times with a “rod of iron,” but for which he would 
never have become what we have designated him— 
the Iron Duke of the Methodist itinerancy. Iron 
dukes such as John Tillett have iron not only in 
their blood, but in their consciences also. 

Had John Tillett lived in the days of the early 

5 (65) 


66 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


Pilgrim Fathers, he could have qualified for a place of 
honor among the compeers of Cotton Mather. 
But instead of being subjected to the stern discipline 
of Puritanism, which was adapted to the bleak shores 
of New England, and a form of Christian faith which 
John Tillett unquestionably would have relished 
with an unfailing satisfaction, he was born and 
brought up in the clime of our Southland, where, as 
we have already seen, he early came under the 
molding influences of Methodism, which, even in his 
time, had a sunnier face and a warmer heart than 
the Puritanism of New England. 

The fires of experimental religion in John Tillett’s 
heart had been kindled at Methodist altars, and these 
fires continued to burn to the end of his days. Asa 
young minister, the most insistent ery of his religious 
nature was for God and to know the fullness of the 
love of God. 

This hunger of his heart led the youthful itinerant 
in the fifth year of his ministry to become interested 
in the doctrine of entire sanctification, sometimes 
designated as the “Second Blessing” theory of 
sanctification; and in this doctrine, in the experience 
of this blessing, he expected to find those high 
spiritual attainments for which his soul hungered. 

Consequently, in September, 1845, he began to 
keep a record of his inner religious life with the hope 


Inner Religious Life 67 


that such a journal might become a means of assisting 
him in obtaining the desired blessing. 

“Moved, I trust, by the Spirit of God,’ he begins, 
“T this night commence keeping a journal of my 
religious travels on the way to the New Jerusalem. 
I pray the blessing of the almighty God upon this 
means which I have adopted to advance that state of 
holiness without which I cannot see my God in 
peace. I commenced seeking holiness of heart on 
Friday, the 28th of last August, and by the help of 
God I will never stop nor slacken my exertions until 
I obtain this inestimable blessing. I have generally 
felt greatly encouraged since I began. My soul has 
been rising in light and strength ever since I com- 
menced. I am afraid I am not seeking the blessing 
with my whole heart, but I believe that God will 
help me thus to seek it. To-day instead of taking a 
nap, as I have allowed myself to do for some time, 
I engaged in secret prayer and was somewhat 
refreshed. I want that violence of soul which takes 
the kingdom of heaven by force.” 

His son, Dr. W. F. Tillett, of Nashville, Tenn., has 
the original copy of this interesting journal, reaching, 
as it does, across fifteen years of his life and closing 
with the twentieth year of his ministry, which was a 
short time before the beginning of the Civil War, a 


68 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


fact that may explain why he did not continue his 
Journal.* 

This journal gives many intimate glimpses of his 
inner life, because he writes with the utmost candor 
and without an effort to give color to anything that 
he says. Evidently he put on paper just what he 
thought and felt at the time. Prominent among the 
features of this whole story of his inner life is a dis- 
satisfaction with his own attainments of the divine 
life, and because of its prominence we mention this 
first. A certain divine discontent with self is often 
a healthful sign in the realm of religious experience, 
being a not unusual precursor of advancement in 
the spiritual life. 

The reader can at random pick out such ex- 
pressions as the following: “I am not advancing in 
holiness as fast as I should wish.” “‘T still feel that 
the Lord is with me, but I am afraid that my soul 
is not sufficiently vehement in seeking entire holi- 
ness.” “TI feel mortified with a sense of my in- 
feriority to those whose circumstances for improve- 
ment have been so much more favorable than my 
own.” 

On Sunday, December 13, 1845, he writes: “Ar- 
rived home from Conference last night. I do not 


*His oldest son (James) was now a volunteer in training for 
the Confederate army, which he entered at the beginning of 
the war, serving in the cavalry under Gen. Robert EH. Lee. 


Inner Religious Life 69 


think that I have made any progress in grace since 
I left Mother Wyche’s. Conference occasions have 
never been profitable seasons to my soul.’’* 

Then the Saturday night following he writes: 
“Yesterday I observed as a fast day, with a hope of 
recovering the ground I have lost in going to Con- 
ference. I found praying dull and heavy, and when 
dinner came I indulged until I felt condemned. In 
secret and family prayer in the evening I felt con- 
siderable encouragement. ‘To-day I feel more con- 
fidence in prayer than I have for several days, 
though not so much as I did some weeks ago. I am 
afraid I give way to the enemy in indulging am- 
bitions, aspirations after eminence for myself and my 
Conference. I am still determined, however, to go 
on.” 

Friday night, August 19, 1847, he makes this 
entry: “I am not yet rooted and grounded in love. 
The righteousness of God’s holy law is not yet fully 
manifested in me. I am afraid that I am sometimes 
disposed to confer too much with flesh and blood. 
I can discover in my religion at times things that 
look much like flaws. But I trust that I can truly 
say that religion is with me a blessed reality. I can 
where men have been elected and consecrated to the high 
office of Bishop, have been known to make a similar observa- 
tion. 


70 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


say that I am trying to commit my ways unto the 
Lord and to follow his directions in all my paths.” 

One week later he makes the following entry: 
“Wearied by a protracted meeting which closed 
yesterday, I have not strictly observed to-day as 
fast day. In a church trial which I conducted this 
evening, I found grace to maintain the spirit of 
meekness and forbearance in some degree. I trust 
through the goodness of God I am growing in grace 
and divine knowledge. The Lord Jesus and his 
cause are precious to my soul.” 

Four weeks later he observes: “I do not feel such a 
distinct sense of the Divine Presence as I desire. I 
feel sad evidence at times that there are within me 
the remains of pride, my old besetting sin. I delight, 
I am afraid, more than I should in those acts which 
are the subject of praise among my fellow creatures. 
I find in me a disposition to boast of such things as 
commend me to men. I feel that I cannot rest till 
I am pure within; till all this strife and war within 
in perfect peace shall end. I have not as yet lately 
observed a fast day to my entire satisfaction.” 

We have quoted enough from those “Confessions” 
of his, if the reader will permit us to use that term in 
this connection, to show that John Tillett, who at 
all times, both in his preaching and in the adminis- 
tration of discipline, set unusually high standards 
for the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made 


Inner Religious Life 71 


him an overseer, was even more exacting with him- 
self than with anyone else. He set for himself higher 
standards of living and a more rigid discipline than 
he did for any member of his flock. He practiced 
what he preached and brought himself to live in 
strict obedience to the laws of God and of the Church. 
He was no Pharisee who sought to lay upon other 
men’s shoulders burdens that he would not touch 
with his fingers. 

It is also noteworthy that he gave close and con- 
stant attention to his own inner life. A careful and 
rigid introspection was the daily habit of his life. 

This can be explained in part by the fact that the 
Methodist Church in his day, as from the beginning 
of its history, placed great emphasis upon personal 
religious experience. Not a new doctrine, but a new 
life, had been the watchword of the Wesleyan 
Movement from the first, and continued to be in 
John Tillett’s time and is yet among all true Meth- 
odists. The direct witness of the Holy Spirit to 
one’s acceptance of God and holiness of heart were, 
in their religious lives, the grand objective for the 
people called Methodists. In his day the Methodists 
believed that personal religion, like charity, begins at 
home. 

Such a conception of religion is not in accord with 
a certain popular notion of the present day which in 
our opinion is receiving undue emphasis. It is this: 


72 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


That introspection, or self-examination, is of little 
value, that it leads to selfishness, if not morbidity, 
and that instead of giving such attention to one’s 
self, the proper thing to do is to turn our thoughts to 
the moral and spiritual welfare of others. 

The idea upon its face appears to be quite the 
thing. But emphasis at this point in the sphere of 
religion too frequently results in a sharp lookout for 
the sins of others while one’s own sins are entirely 
overlooked, and when one is busy about the affairs 
of other people he allows his own soul to remain 
impoverished. 

But John Tillett was not at any time ensnared by 
an erroneous and hurtful notion of that sort. On 
the contrary, he looked with constant care and a 
deep concern to his own spiritual health. And for 
that very reason he became a workman who had no 
reason to be ashamed of his record, which stretched 
across more than fifty eventful years. 

On August 6, 1851, six years after he began seeking 
the “Second Blessing,’ John Tillett made a pro- 
fession of entire sanctification. We let him tell the 
story in his own words: 


On Wednesday night, August 6, I gave myself entirely to 
God and obtained the sanctification of my nature. Since 
that solemn act of consecration I have been kept by the power 
of God through faith from all sin. The instrument which my 
Heavenly Father employed to guide and urge me into this 
blessed state was a book written by Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, of 


Inner Religious Life 73 


New York. I commenced reading it on Tuesday evening and 
I had progressed, I think, to the fifteenth number, which im- 
pressed me with the fear that I never should embrace this 
great salvation if I did not do it shortly. I, therefore, went 
off to myself after my family had retired and engaged in 
fervent prayer and earnest effort to come to God’s conditions. 
I was enabled to give up all and to believe the offering ac- 
cepted. I solemnly covenanted with God to follow his Spirit 
whithersoever it should lead me, making his will the rule of my 
life. And, blessed be God! I can say with truth that the 
Lord keepeth him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
him. 
“T have the witness, Lord, 
That all I do is right, 
According to thy will and word, 
Well pleasing in thy sight.” 


I do not depend upon frames oremotions. I live by faith 
in the Son of God; and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. I 
am fully persuaded that God will keep what I have committed 
unto him. I now believe as fully in God’s power to save from 
all sin as in any other truth in the Bible. Indeed, I can say I 
know that itis so. I can now say, 


“Thy ransomed servant, I 
Restore to thee thine own; 
And, from this moment, live or die 
hy To serve my God alone.” 


My business and my privilege is to keep the offering con- 
stantly upon God’s altar, and I have unwavering faith to 
believe that he will keep me from all sin. Glory to God! 


A few days later he writes: 


Last night the powers of darkness came out against me, and 


74 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


my soul trembled at their assault. I was praying for mani- 
festations, pleading before God the words of Jesus when he 
said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall 
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” When not 
getting the answer as I was permitted to expect, the adversary 
suggested that, though I had given up all and believed that I 
was accepted, it would amount to nothing if I did not get the 
manifestation I was praying for. My soul was in deep waters 
awhile. But the Lord comforted me with the words of James 
i. 12: “Blessed is he who is tempted: for when he is tried, he 
shall receive the crown of life.” This morning my soul 
rejoiced in the assurance that my name was written in heaven, 
engraved on the palms of my Saviour’s hands. 

Thursday night, October 9. Nine weeks have elapsed 
since I entered the blessed state of perfect love, and, glory to 
God, I have been kept unspotted from the world! I have 
not had the same rapturous communion with the Spirit that 
I had during the first week or two after I embraced the bless- 
ing of sanctification. But I have had, all the time, a steady, 
unwavering confidence and an uninterrupted peace. I find it 
delightfully easy to serve God with my whole heart. The 
Spirit of God is with me continually. I know, assuredly, 
that my Redeemer lives. And the life I live I live by the 
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. 


Under date of August 7, 1852, his journal contains 
this entry: 


Last night was the anniversary of my sanctification. I 
thought before it came that I would observe it as a sort of 
watch night; but having held services last night at Good Hope, 
in which I labored to the extent of my strength, I lay down to 
rest without thinking of it. But I am still strong in faith, I 


Inner Religious Life 75 


trust, giving glory to God. I do not have that leaping and 
bounding of the soul in the ways of the Lord that I had for 
some time after I embraced the blessing of perfect love. But 
my confidence and assurance are as strong, if not stronger, 
than ever before. I feel daily the blessed reality of the great 
work. I have not, so far as I know, in a single instance, 
knowingly sinned against God, though in several instances I 
have doubted, or been tempted to doubt, the propriety of 
things that I have done. 

His journal, for about two years after his entrance 
into the experience of sanctification, makes frequent 
reference to the subject. But after that he seldom 
mentions the subject.* 

In explanation of this, his son, Dr. W. F. Tillett, 
of Vanderbilt University, writes: 


My father changed his views somewhat as to the instan- 
taneousness of the experience of sanctification and preached 


*No one who makes a careful study of the personal journals 
and public discourses of John Wesley can fail to note how 
frequent are his allusions to and insistence upon entire sancti- 
fication and Christian perfection for a number of years in the 
middle period of his ministry; and then how later he seems to 
let the matter rest, and from that time on the subject re- 
ceives relatively but little attention as compared with the 
preceding period of “‘storm and stress’”’ in the proclamation 
of this doctrine. In 1770 Mr. Wesley said that of those who 
had previously professed to have attained entire sanctification 
by an instantaneous experience hardly one in thirty con- 
tinued to profess it; and the same observation was made by 
him at other dates. See Tyerman’s ‘Life of Wesley,’’ volume 
III, page 59. 


76 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


later in life more on growth in grace from conversion onward 
and less on an instantaneous experience as the method of 
attaining it. In changing his views in connection with a 
progressive religious experience, he never spoke as if he felt 
that he had lost the blessing he had previously received. He 
simply interpreted that experience differently from the way 
he interpreted it while he was under the spell of Mrs. Palmer’s 
beautiful and wooing picture of the holy life and how to 
attainit. To his children—and I am persuaded to others also— 
my father grew more and more “‘sanctified” as he advanced 
in life. 


It will be well, just here, to remember that John 
Tillett’s long life of sacrifice and service, of un- 
failing devotion to God and to his Church, and of 
searching after those spiritual riches which by right 
belong to the children of our Heavenly Father could 
not be measured by a doctrine about the method 
of attaining holiness; neither could it be put 
within the circumscribed limits of opinions or log- 
ical syllogism. 

Just as the odor of Mary’s alabaster box, which was 
a gift of passionate love to her Lord, could not be 
restricted within certain obligations to the poor, 
but filled the room and _ has filled the world, so the 
life which is overflowing with a constant and passion- 
ate devotion to Jesus Christ cannot be confined 
within boundaries prescribed by intellectual proc- 
esses. The intellectual conceptions may serve as 
guideposts, but can do little beyond that. 


Inner Religious Life 77 


And John Tillett’s life was an overflowing life— 
it overflowed with a constant and passionate de- 
votion to his Lord. It could not, therefore, be 
measured by the doctrines that he believed, and to 
which he gave unmeasured emphasis, for these were 
only the banks and braes to guide that river of his 
life which ever flowed onward with increasing 
volume and that made glad the City of God. 

The acceptance, therefore, of one view of sanc- 
tification in early life and of another later is only an 
accident in his spiritual history. This change of 
opinion on a question of doctrine never affected his 
life centers. The depth and sincerity of his religious 
nature remained ever the same, and at all times he 
eagerly and persistently sought the sunlit heights of 
religious experience. The doctrine of sanctification 
that he later believed, and lived, and preached did 
not put any less emphasis upon a conscious religious 
experience and upon a vital relationship of faith 
and love to Jesus Christ than did the doctrine set 
forth in the writings of those who believed in the 
instantaneousness of sanctification. But he did 
come to attach less importance to the mode of 
attaining a richer and deeper experience in the spirit- 
ual life and to the subjective moods and feelings 
that “come and go” and which for that reason 
constitute an unsafe index of one’s permanent 
Spiritual possessions. He placed less value in later 


78 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


life upon one’s profession of Christian perfection 
and more value upon a Christian believer’s so living 
that his neighbors and those who knew him best 
would profess perfection for him. At no time 
perhaps did Mr. Wesley’s friends and followers 
have more reason for believing in his sanctification 
than when, in a letter to Dr. Dodd, he wrote of 
himself saying: “‘I have told all the world I am not 
perfect. ...I have not attained the character I 
draw.” 

John Tillett’s ideals of personal holiness were not 
static, but progressive, and they always moved 
ahead of his experience and attainmentsand beckoned 
him onward and upward to higher heights of holiness. 
“Not as though I had already attained, either were 
already perfect: but I follow after, if so be that I 
may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended 
of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to 
have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching forth 
unto those things which are before, I press toward 
the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus.” If to be “thus minded” means to 
be perfect, thus was John Tillett perfect. 


V 


THE PROPHET WITH A PASSION FOR 
RIGHTEOUSNESS AND A GENIUS 
FOR DISCIPLINE 


Vv 
THE PROPHET WITH A PASSION FOR 


RIGHTEOUSNESS AND A GENIUS 
FOR DISCIPLINE 


WE have seen how it came to pass that from an 
obscure section of the “Albemarle Country” came 
this iron-blooded youth of imperial will who, in 
spite of the adverse conditions that prevailed in that 
somnolent section, became possessed of high edu- 
cational and moral ideals; and, remaining ever true 
to these lofty ideals, he completed his college train- 
ing, taught school to pay for his education, and 
eventually, in the providence of God, entered the 
North Carolina Conference, a well-equipped min- 
ister of the gospel. 

And the very forces, both inherent and acquired, 
that were dominant in the preparatory years of his 
life remained in command through his entire public 
ministry. An imperial will, a conscientious devotion 
to duty, and an unfailing loyalty to his ideals, to 
his God, and to his Church, continued to the end 
of his life outstanding features of his sterling man- 
hood. In every element of his richly endowed 
character he showed himself a “bondslave of Jesus 
Christ.”” He felt that “he was not his own, for he 
had been bought with a price.” He interpreted 

6 (81) 


82 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


seriously the vows of Church membership and the 
call to preach; and that call was not at the begin- 
ning of his ministry simply; it was continuous—he 
kept hearing it as long as he lived. 

The unflagging zeal with which John Tillett en- 
forced every law within the scope of his administra- 
tion led some to think of him as a legalist, with a 
blind devotion to the letter of the law. But such 
was not the case. That he, throughout the long 
years of his ministry, enforced the law, and this 
without regard to immediate or ultimate results in 
its bearing on himself and his personal popularity, 
cannot be questioned for a single moment. To him 
no part of the Methodist Discipline was a dead 
letter. He believed with all his heart that Methodist 
people should obey the laws of their Church— 
believed that laws were made to be obeyed; and as 
much as in him was, he saw that “the flock over 
which the Holy Ghost had made him an overseer” 
lived up to that standard, or else he called them to 
account because of their failure to do so. 

But John Tillett interpreted and enforced dis- 
cipline as a thing divinely designed to save people, 
not to damn them. He regarded discipline as a 
method of dealing with inconsistent and backslidden 
Church members which, if faithfully and firmly but 
lovingly enforced, would result in leading them to 
give up their sins, and thus save them to the Church 


The Prophet with a Passion for Righteousness 83 


and to a Christian life, rather than cause them to 
withdraw from the Church and give themselves 
over to sin. And this was generally the result of 
discipline as he administered it. Although he was 
what may be called a disciplinarian, it turned out, 
when his ministry was compared with that of min- 
isters who neglected discipline and were opposed to 
applying it except in the most scandalous cases, 
that fewer members had been actually lost to the 
Church under his ministry and by his methods than 
under the ministry and methods of those who paid 
little or no attention to discipline. No one could 
thunder more vigorously against sins than he did 
from the pulpit, but he believed in following this up 
with private and personal visitations and appeals; 
and if these went unheeded, he warned the offenders 
of the consequences, of the necessity of enforcing 
discipline against them if they would not give up 
their sinful practices. And he did enforce it time 
and again, with most happy results. 

Many cases might be cited in his ministry to show 
the good results of his enforcement of discipline, 
some cases where the offenses were of a serious 
nature and others less serious; as, for example, 
indulgence in worldly and sinful amusements. 

One instance of the latter type of offenders may he 
fittingly referred to. It is the case of a remarkably 
bright and gifted young woman who was passionately 


84 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


fond of dancing and playing cards. Converted in one 
of Mr. Tillett’s revivals, she applied for membership 
in the Church and was received, but not without her 
attention being called to her vows as including the 
giving up of all indulgences in her former favorite 
pleasures. It was not long, however, before her 
exuberant nature gave in at a festive social gathering, 
and she plunged into the dance and games of cards 
with her former enthusiasm. Her pastor, hearing of 
what had befallen his young convert, went to see 
her. When she saw how she had violated her solemn 
vows, she wept bitterly and on promising not to 
repeat her offense she was allowed to remain in the 
Church; for she was indeed anxious to be a member 
of the Church and not to be excluded from its folds. 
But again in the course of a few months worldly- 
minded and pleasure-loving companions induced her 
to join them in “the pleasures of sin for a season,” 
and again she went back on her vows. The pastor 
talked kindly but firmly to her and told her she 
must now be excluded from the Church. This was 
done. But she was very unhappy to find herself no 
longer in fellowship with the people of God—so 
unhappy that a few months of meditation on what 
she had done brought her to full repentance and to a 
decision to ask for restoration to Church member- 
ship. The pastor, to whom in it all she was devotedly 
attached, took her back again and so deeply im- 


The Prophet with a Passion for Righteousness 85 


pressed and influenced her, by his kind but courage- 
ous and firm insistence upon fidelity to Church 
vows and abstinence from indulgences which stood 
between her and a useful and happy Christian life 
that she never more needed to have Church discipline 
administered to her. She became thereafter an 
active Christian worker, married an_ itinerant 
Methodist preacher, and her son is one of the most 
useful and prominent ministers of the Church to-day. 

Other cases might be cited of backsliders, some of 
them weak and wavering disciples, who were de- 
veloped into eminently useful Christians under his 
firm enforcement of discipline. 

The question here and now is not as to whether 
dancing and card-playing and such like things are 
compatible or incompatible with membership in the 
Methodist Church or with a consistent Christian 
life. If that were the question, and the present all- 
but-universal neglect of discipline for indulgence in 
amusements of this kind should be interpreted as the 
correct attitude of the Church and ministry toward 
these and other like things—and if it should be said 
that the present leniency of the Church toward such 
things should always have been the policy and prac- 
tice of the Church and ministry—then indeed it 
would follow that John Tillett should be discredited 
as a prophet overrighteous and overzealous in 
matters that would have been better ignored by him 


86 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


and passed over in silence. But this “Iron Duke of 
the Itinerancy”’ believed that the ‘General Rules” 
of the Church were things to be lived up to, and that 
the repeated deliverances of the bishops and of 
Annual and General Conferences against worldly 
and sinful amusements, in which these specific things 
were mentioned by name, meant what they said 
when they declared them to be inconsistent with 
membership in the Methodist Church; and he felt 
that fidelity to his ministerial vows called for the 
application and enforcement of these official ut- 
terances of the Church. To say one thing and do 
another, to say a thing and then so to act as to justify 
the inference that after all it was an utterance not 
meant to be interpreted literally and executed in 
good faith—an inconsistency of this kind was so 
utterly incompatible with John Tillett’s way of 
thinking and speaking and acting that he could but 
think that the Church’s utterances against worldly 
and sinful amusements meant exactly what they 
said and that pastors should govern themselves 
accordingly. 

He would doubtless have welcomed a separation 
of healthful, innocent, and legitimate amusements 
and entertainments from those that are hurtful and 
undermining to Christian character. But taking 
things as they were in his day, and judging the tree 
by its fruits, he regarded the dance hall and the card 


The Prophet with a Passion for Righteousness 87 


table, with their inevitable accompaniments, as 
enemies to Christian life and character that should 
be met and fought outright. Since his day the drift 
has seemed to be away from his attitude toward 
these popular amusements and’ from his method of 
dealing with them. But is there not an increasing 
number of ministers and Christian laymen, at the 
present day, who are feeling that now, even more 
perhaps than in John Tillett’s day, the lascivious 
dance and the godless gaming table are among the 
worst enemies of the Church and among the most 
subtle and pernicious influences at work to draw 
young men and young women away from the 
Christian life? 

It is but proper and right to add that it was less 
difficult to enforce Church discipline seventy-five or 
even fifty years ago than it is now, and efforts to 
enforce it were more successful and effective in the 
earlier years of John Tillett’s ministry (1839 to 1861) 
than was the ease after the Civil War and during the 
last years of his life. But to the very last he both 
believed in and, as far as was possible, practiced the 
application of discipline as one of the most effective 
methods of saving people from their sins, 

The conscientious enforcement of discipline was 
thus with him no Pharisaical round of legal ob- 
servance, merely to fulfil the letter of the law. On 
the contrary, he was an idealist of the most pro- 


88 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


nounced type—not an idealist in the sense of being a 
dreamer up in the air, out of touch with the practical 
affairs about him, for he was peculiarly interested in 
people and in all the minute details of everyday life. 
He kept up with what was going on in the com- 
munities where he lived. The most cursory perusal 
of his correspondence convinces one of this fact. 

But he never, in a single instance, allowed him- 
self to fall under the dominion of his immediate 
environment. If existing conditions failed to 
measure up to his standard of right, this man, with: 
his ever-present ideal of what the world ought to be, 
spared no effort to better those conditions and make 
them to conform to those standards that he had set 
for himself and for the Church and the community 
for whose moral ideals and practices he felt, as a 
prophet of God, in some degree responsible. He | 
did not hesitate to lay his ax to the root of the tree, 
if the tree, in his judgment, ought to be cut down. 
His zeal for law was only a method of attaining the 
true ideal of righteousness both in individuals and 
in the Church. With an apostolic passion for right- 
eousness, he preached salvation through the gospel of 
Jesus Christ. In a word, all the energies of his life 
were concentrated to the task of making the world 
that is the sort of world that ought to be. 

A critic of. the great English dramatist has said 
that the key to “Hamlet”’ is 


The Prophet with a Passion for Righteousness 89 


“The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, 
That ever I was born to set it right!” 


Shakespeare,’ continues the critic, “sought to 
depict a great deed laid upon a soul unequal to the 
performance of it. In this view I find the piece 
composed throughout.” 

“A beautiful, pure, and most moral nature, with- 
out the strength of nerve which makes the hero, 
sinks beneath the burden which it can neither bear 
nor throw off. Every duty is holy to him—this too 
hard. The impossible is required of him—not the 
impossible in itself, but the impossible to him.” 

But the failure of Hamlet, as represented by this 
critic, was unknown to John Tillett. Like Hamlet, 
he saw the world out of joint; but, believing that the 
gospel of Jesus Christ had power to rectify all its 
ills, he accepted it as a stern duty that to him had 
been committed the task to set it right, at least that 
part of it for which he felt morally responsible, 
under his divine commission, and to which he felt 
it his stern duty to preach a faithful and full gospel. 
And the conscience and the courage that this moral 
hero put into the task became the unceasing wonder 
of those among whom he labored, and the very 
people who sometimes sought to slay this prophet— 
slay him, that is, with their severe criticisms—would 
in after years honor and praise him for his fidelity 
to duty and build a monument to his memory. 


90 he Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


This fact explains in no small degree his frequent 
returns to pastoral charges which he had previously 
served. For the best fruits of his ministry often did 
not appear until after he had left a pastoral charge; 
then the people saw his worth and the value to a 
community of such a gospel as he had preached. 

Mr. Tillett was a diligent student of the Word of 
God and prepared his sermons with great care. He 
studied the text and made sure of the accuracy of 
his exegesis. From the viewpoint of the sermonic 
art many of his sermons, written out in full as they 
were (and he left many in manuscript), are worthy 
of a place with the best. But the things in his 
sermons that made them most impressive and 
famous consisted in the application of his text and 
his sermons to present and surrounding conditions 
in the community, and these, as a rule, were extem- 
pore additions to his written exegetical or expository 
thoughts on the text. 

Furthermore, the man behind the text and the 
sermon must be taken into the account. When he 
preached the people said, “It thundered,” because a 
moral giant had spoken. His words when discussing 
social evils and personal righteousness, and the 
issues of eternal life and death, were ablaze with 
passion and hurled forth by the dynamic of a pro- 
found moral conviction; for he who lived constantly 
with a keen and solemn sense of obligation in the 


= 


The Prophet with a Passion for Righteousness + 91 


discharge of each and every duty as he saw it was 
especially bold to utter the truth, let it cut where it 
might and whom it might. He had the courage of 
his convictions and attacked the sins of the people— 
not the sins of those far away, but of the people in 
his own community and his own congregation. 

This he did without calling names, but in such 
plain terms that the identity of the offenders was 
clearly revealed, especially if they were notorious for 
their corruption or wrongdoing. 

He believed in and preached civic righteousness. 
He was an anti-saloon preacher of the very strongest 
type for a half century before the Anti-Saloon 
League was organized. He preached against the 
cruelties of slavery, and especially against the heart- 
less “nigger trader,”’ who bought negroes and trans- 
ported them whithersoever he found he could sell 
them for the largest profit, thereby heartlessly 
separating husband and wife, parent and child. 
Men who went into bankruptcy to get out of paying 
honest debts and men who failed in business in order 
to make money by their own failures received his 
unqualified condemnation publicly uttered—not 
calling any names, of course, but the hearers under- 
stood. Gamblers and all forms of gambling in the 
community where he lived were certain to be de- 
scribed, exposed, and denounced by him in no am- 
biguous or uncertain terms when he preached. 


92 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


And how the people in the community did talk over 
John Tillett’s sermons—over some of them at least! 
And yet some of them were as gentle and sweet as a 
mother’s soothing song; and whenever commenda- 
tion or praise was in his judgment called for it was 
never wanting. 


VI 
AN EXAMPLE OF HIS METHODS AND 
HIS PREACHING 


VI 


AN EXAMPLE OF HIS METHODS AND HIS 
PREACHING 


Many times as we follow John Tillett in the course 
of his ministry do we have our attention called to the 
fact that he opposed and preached against’ dancing, 
card-playing, theater-going, attending circuses, and 
other forms of popular amusement which: he con- 
sidered worldly and sinful. He did not believe in 
trying to discriminate among these things, but in 
letting them all go. They were all, in his judgment, 
too interlocked with hurtful associations and evil 
tendencies to make it possible to select and separate 
the good from the evil. Better miss a little possible 
good than to run the risk of being seriously and per- 
manently injured by the many unmistakable ele- 
ments of social and moral evil in questionable 
amusements. This was the theory which he preached 
to others and practiced in his own family. He was 
perfectly frank in all of this, just as he was in the dis- 
cussion of all other subjects. Many regarded him 
as needlessly and excessively strict in his ideas on 
these subjects and in his insistence upon Christians 
avoiding not only evil, but, as far as possible, 
even the appearance of evil. 


We cite an incident just here that will serve to 
(95) 


96 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


illustrate his method of dealing with offenders both 
privately and in public discourse, whether the 
‘offense had to do with worldly amusements or the 
grosser sins of the day. 

It so happened that in one of his pastorates one of 
the most prominent and influential officials of his 
Church, a young professor in a local school, was in 
the habit of attending certain social gatherings where 
dancing and card-playing constituted a large part of 
the entertainment, though he did not himself 
participate in either of these diversions, which were 
condemned by the Methodist Church. The preacher 
remonstrated privately with the young man and 
urged him to abstain from attending these enter- 
tainments, both for his own sake and for the sake of 
his example and influence upon others. But the 
young Methodist official, for reasons satisfactory to 
himself, continued to attend the dances. This and 
other occurrences in the community called forth 
from the preacher a characteristic sermon, an out- 
line of which has been preserved and which we here 
reproduce. 

The text upon this particular occasion was Mark 
xiv. 54, “And Peter followed him afar off, even into 
the palace of the high priest: and he sat with the 
servants, and warmed himself at the fire.” 

“There are two points in the text,” began the 
minister, ‘that we shall endeavor to make prominent 


An Example of His Methods and Preaching 97 


and impressive: (1) The following at a distance, 
(2) the warming by the fire.” 

He dwelt at length upon the first division of the 
sermon. Among other things the preacher pointed 
out that “Peter’s following at a distance indicated his 
unwillingness to be identified with Christ and his 
cause on this perilous occasion. Peter saw his 
Master in the hands of an infuriated mob, clamoring 
for his blood. It was indeed a scary time, and it 
could but jeopardize a man’s life to identify himself 
with Christ and his cause at that time. Peter con- 
sulted his own safety and pusillanimously withdrew 
from all positions where he might be recognized as a 
follower of Christ. He evidently dropped back to 
make the impression that he was not identified with 
Christ and his cause and did not wish to take part 
in the conflict ther so violently raging among the 
people.” The preacher’s exposition continued: 


We at a great distance from that turbulent scene may be 
inclined to denounce Peter in severe terms and claim for 
ourselves greater courage and fortitude. But before we deal 
out denunciations against Peter, let us see where we stand. 
It may be that some of us, as pronounced as Peter in our 
professed allegiance to Christ, have failed utterly when the 
cause of Christ demanded self-denial, cross-bearing, courage, 
patience, or a course of conduct at variance with the worldly 
and sinful times in which we live. 

Peter was found in the company of sinful men and women. 
Where are we in regard to those things which distinguish good 

{i 


98 The Iron Duke of the Mechodist Itinerancy 


Christians that are alive and rightly related to the cause of 
religion from those who are indifferent or, it may be, hostile 
to religion? Where are we when the people of God are called 
away from their secular business, pleasures, and enjoyments 
to attend to the interests of the Church? Where do we stand 
on the temperance question, the greatest reform since the day 
of Martin Luther? Where are we when money is demanded 
to support the gospel, to build churches, schools, and colleges 
and to send the gospel of Christ to the heathen world? Have 
you who profess to be followers of Christ broken ranks in 
these matters, so that no one can identify you as those who 
offer themselves and their substance to advance the cause of 
Christ? Remember that Peter fell back to save his life! How 
much more guilty are we who fall back to save our money, our 
good standing in society, our popularity with the world, and 
access to scenes of fashion and amusement! You find it easy 
to look back and see how Peter “followed Christ afar off.” 
But see also where you stand as related to Christ in those 
things that involve you in difficulties, reproaches, hardships. 


The second point for consideration was, “ Peter’s 
warming himself atthe fire.’ The speaker continued: 


The next step with Peter after following afar off was to warm 
himself at the enemy’s fire. Peter had no comfort in his 
conduct. His shirking of duty and danger was well calculated 
to make him feel bad. He was self-condemned. He was a 
coward, and nothing degrades a man in his own estimation 
more than conscious cowardice, nor will anything make him 
curse and swear more. He was out in the cold; and having no 
comfort in himself, he ventures up near the fire around which 
the enemies and haters of Jesus were standing. What harm 
was it to warm by their fire? But somehow, while he was 
warming by the fire of the enemies of his Lord, his resolution 


An Example of His Methods and Preaching 99 


and courage grew weaker. His manhood forsook him, and he 
was afraid almost of his own shadow. We donot undertake to 
show how his warming had such an effect. But the record 
puts it down as a step toward swearing and lying. Warming 
at the enemy’s fire and cursing seem here to bear to each other 
the relation of cause and effect. 

Now, as then, the enemies of godliness, the votaries of the 
world, the haters of pure and undefiled religion, have their 
fires blazing out everywhere within reach of all professors of 
religion. These pleasures address themselves to our feelings, 
propensities, natural appetites, passions, and cravings of 
nature. They are means of relief invented for guilty con- 
sciences and to make those with no religious enjoyment feel 
comfortable and contented with their sinful state. But for 
these fires to warm by the wicked would be so tormented with 
self-reproach and shame that they would flee to Christ for 
relief from their intolerable burdens and distress. 

Let us notice some of those worldly fires at which the strag- 
gling disciples of Jesus in our day stop to warm themselves, 
and where, while warning themselves, they lose their courage 
and resolution and yield themselves more fully to the world, 
the flesh, and the devil. 

The greatest fire of an enemy that has ever been kindled in 
our land, and the most powerfully attractive, is the saloon 
with its intoxicating liquors and sensual and social tempta- 
tions. These fires are burning in large numbers in cities, 
towns, villages, crossroads, and in liquor-wagons that tra- 
verse the country far and wide and, like the devil himself, 
go to and fro, seeking whom they may warm, madden, and 
devour. Some keep these fires burning at home in barrels, 
demijohns, jugs, and decanters. Some carry chunks in their 
pockets and bosoms and keep the steam up all the time. 
This alcoholic fire has the most bewitching effect in intoxicat- 


100 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


ing the brain, making some who are terribly in debt feel, for 
the time being, as if they did not owe a dollar in the world, 
as if they were possessors of princely fortunes. Men who leave 
home in a pleasant humor warm themselves at these fires of 
hell and come home like infuriated demons. Alas for wife and 
children when the husband warms himself at the grogshop 
instead of at his own domestic altar! And sometimes, alas, 
even she who is wife and mother warms herself at this alcoholic 
fire, which is surely woman’s greatest enemy in that itso often 
robs her of a husband’s support and love, and no woman who 
herself frequents this forbidden fire ever fails to disgrace both 
herself and her family. 

Another fire at which young gentlemen and ladies warm 
themselves when they are out in the cold and have no religion 
to comfort them is found at dances, balls, revels, frolics, 
tournaments, circuses, theaters, and such like. The Methodist 
Church has lifted up its warning notes against all these fires, 
because it knows that those that warm at them, like Peter, 
will lose their courage and resolution in the divine service 
and eventually fall into the currents of worldliness, irreligion, 
and ungodliness. 


This outline is a fair example of John Tillett’s 
style of preaching and of his methods of applying 
Scripture truth to his own congregation and to the 
shortcomings and sins of the people in his own 
community, not sparing his own members, and least 
of all the official members of the Church, who should 
be “ensamples of the flock.” 

The climax of this particular sermon, however, 
was reached only when the preacher came to de- 
scribe the inconsistencies and dangers of a pro- 


An Example of His Methods and Preaching 101 


fessing Christian who would attend wine parties and 
champagne suppers, but would not himself drink; 
who would watch gamblers at their games, but would 
not himself gamble; who would go to dances and 
card parties, but would not himself dance or play 
cards. 

While the sermon was being preached, the young 
steward who was guilty of the last named of these 
inconsistencies was in his usual place on the front 
seat. The sermon made a lasting impression upon 
all who heard it, and most of all, as we can well 
imagine, upon this young man himself. The preach- 
er felt that his young steward in particular, holding 
as he did such a position of influence among the 
young people of the community, ought not only to 
stand by the rules of his Church, but to set an ex- 
ample that could be safely followed by all. Others, 
following his example in “warming at the fires of the 
enemy,” would fail to stop where the young pro- 
fessor did, but would be led at length to leave their 
Church, to deny their Lord, and return to a life of 
worldliness and sin. 

And yet it should be added, to show the other side of 
John Tillett’s character, that there was no breach of 
confidence and friendship between the pastor and 
this young layman. When it turned out that the 
young layman, although warming himself at their 
fires, like Peter, did not, like Peter, fall, but stood 


102 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


true to his Lord and to his Church, the preacher 
came to appreciate and greatly admire the young 
man, so much so that when he moved to a Western 
State and established a school of his own the preach- 
er underwent the extra expense involved and sent 
one of his own sons to his school and kept him there 
until he was prepared for college. And betwixt 
this young teacher and his former pastor there 
remained, as long as John Tillett lived, the closest 
relation of friendship. But the young man never 
forgot how hot his pastor made that fire at which 
Peter warmed himself! He often talked about the 
sermon, but always with undiminished affection and 
admiration for the brave, outspoken pastor who, 
whenever he preached about the sins and short- 
comings of those who lived in Bible times, never 
failed to apply the truths taught to what he believed 
to be the sins and shortcomings of his own people. 
Knowing that the moral value of this incident will 
be greatly enhanced by introducing the reader to 
this hitherto nameless young teacher and official in 
the Church of which John Tillett was pastor, we now 
make known the fact that it refers to one of the most 
useful and honored laymen in the Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, South—a man who is still living and 
who is known among educators as the Thomas 
Arnold of the South, a teacher whose students, 
numbered by thousands, are found in almost every 


An Example of His Methods and Preaching 103 


community in the South and Southwest, and many 
of them in other parts of the United States. We 
refer to Professor and Ex-United States Senator 
William R. Webb, of Bellbuckle, Tennessee.* 

The election of this distinguished son of North 
Carolina to the United States Senate by the Tennes- 
see Legislature a few years ago to fill out an un- 
expired term was a great but well-deserved honor 
bestowed on him by the legislature of his adopted 
State. His career in the United States Senate, 
although brief, was one of splendid service. The 
cause of nation-wide prohibition was then (1913) at 
the front, and his speech before the Senate in behalf 
of this great cause was one of the most notable and 
effective delivered before that body during those 


*At the time referred to Professor Webb was teaching in 
an Episcopal school in a town where John Tillett was pastor, 
and he felt that it was proper and right for him, so long as he 
Was a professor in that school, to attend the entertainments 
given by or at the school, even though dancing and card 
parties constituted a part of the entertainment. His pastor 
differed with him as to what it behooved a Methodist to do 
under the circumstances. Each had the courage of his con- 
victions and acted accordingly. The preacher preached his 
convictions, and the layman practiced his. As already stated, 
they greatly respected each other and remained ever the best 
of friends. It is from Professor Webb’s recollections of that 
sermon—preached fifty-six years ago—that we are enabled to 
furnish the foregoing outline of its thought and points of 
emphasis. 


104 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


critical days when the cause for which John Tillett, 
the temperance pioneer and apostle, pleaded all his 
life was hanging in the balance. Whatever the 
young professor in North Carolina may have done 
by way of “warming himself at their fires,’”” when he 
was a young steward and was mingling perilously, 
as his pastor thought, with the dancers and card 
players, he certainly was as far from “warming 
himself at their fires’? when it came to fighting the 
liquor forces in Tennessee and in the United States 
Senate as his old pastor could have desired. 

There is perhaps no higher tribute to be paid to 
the “Tron Duke” concerning whom we are writing 
than to say that Ex-Senator Webb regards him, 
when all things are considered, as one of the strong- 
est, most courageous, effective, and influential 
preachers of the gospel whom he has ever known. 
And perhaps there is no better confirmation that we 
ourselves can give to Senator Webb’s high estimate 
of John Tillett’s large and lasting influence as a 
preacher than to say that it is because in traveling 
far and wide over the State of North Carolina we 
have found the moral fruits of his ministry so prev- 
alent and so great at the end of a third of a century 
after his death that we have felt it an imperative 
duty to put on record and preserve from oblivion 
the story of a life work so abounding in moral 
achievement and so inspirational in value as was the 


An Example of His Methods and Preaching 105 


life of this modest but heroic Methodist preacher. 
Suppose we concede that he magnified some evils 
out of proportion to their real demerits and dangers 
—others being judges—it must also be remembered 
that he magnified and insisted upon all those ele- 
ments and ideals of religion and ethics the preaching 
and practice of which make the men and women of 
worth whose membership and work in the Church 
are its crown and glory. 

John Tillett, again, was opposed to the use of 
tobacco and sometimes gave his views on the sub- 
ject in preaching, that he might influence young men 
against a habit which he considered detrimental to 
the highest ideal of Christian character and to the 
greatest usefulness of the individual as well as to 
the best interests of the kingdom of God. He re- 
garded the use of tobacco as a useless and hurtful 
form of self-indulgence, oftener than otherwise 
injurious to health, and always a waste of money 
needed for worthy causes, and therefore inconsistent 
with his ideal of the self-denying religion of Christ, 
which he felt it to be his duty not only to practice, 
but to preach. 

An amusing story is told of an incident that 
occurred in connection with one of his public de- 
liverances against the use of tobacco. 

On one occasion he was preaching in a country 
church, when Rev. Lewis K. Wiley, a well-known and 


106 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


very popular old bachelor, local preacher, sat in the 
pulpit behind him. Mr. Wiley was much given to 
the use of tobacco, both chewing and smoking, and 
was addicted to chewing in church during the preach- 
ing hour (a custom common among tobacco users 
worshiping in country churches in those old days), 
nor did he allow the fact that he was sitting in the 
pulpit behind the preacher to prevent him from 
indulging in his cherished habit during the sermon. 
Brother Wiley usually carried a good-sized plug or 
long roll of tobacco in his pocket. 

In the midst of this particular sermon the preacher 
was setting forth the nature of Christian self-denial 
and things inconsistent therewith in the Christian 
life as he interpreted it and was stating his oppo- 
sition to the use of tobacco. Just as the preacher was 
getting to the subject of tobacco Brother Wiley was 
seen to pull out a long roll of tobacco, and with 
repeated and strenuous efforts he succeeded in 
biting off the end of the roll in full view of every one 
except the preacher. He did not once think of the 
relation his performance bore to the words of the 
preacher until it was too late. The audience broke 
out in laughter at the ludicrousness of the picture 
before them. The preacher thought they were laugh- 
ing at him for preaching against tobacco. This 
aroused his righteous indignation, and he expressed 
his ire in vigorous terms, such as only John Tillett 


An Example of His Methods and Preaching 107 


could employ when he thundered against the sins of 
the times and of the people before him in the pew. 
Some might be laughed down, but not he! 

At the conclusion of the service some one made 
haste to inform the preacher that the congregation 
was not laughing at him, but at Mr. Wiley’s biting 
off the end of a great roll of tobacco while he was con- 
demning the use of it. Upon learning this he, too, 
laughed not less heartily than had the audience 
at what had occurred. For the preservation of this 
amusing incident we are indebted to the remarkably 
vivid memory of that same young professor who was 
described by his pastor as “warming himself at the 
enemy’s fire.” 


VII 
THE IMPRESS AND IMPACT OF HIS 
CHARACTER AND HIS 
PREACHING 


VII 


THE IMPRESS AND IMPACT OF HIS 
CHARACTER AND HIS 
PREACHING 


Tue Iron Duke was no city preacher—for in his 
day there were no city pastors in North Carolina. 
Not through lack of ability, for some of them were 
princes in the pulpit, but because there were no cities 
in the State of North Carolina in the days of his 
prime in the ministry. 

In 1839, when John Tillett joined the Conference, 
Newbern had a population of only 3,699; Fayette- 
ville, 4,285; Wilmington, 4,747; Raleigh, 2,244; 
Charlotte was a little larger than Raleigh, while 
Greensboro and Salisbury followed close behind the 
capital numerically. And these were, at that time, 
the largest towns in the State. All others were mere 
country villages with a few stores, a blacksmith 
shop or two, and the county seats had a courthouse 
and a jail and a whipping post. Furthermore, none 
of these towns were characterized by a rapid growth 
until twenty years after the close of the Civil War, 
when the present era of growth and prosperity for the 
Old North State began. 

There are several characteristics of the people 
among whom Mr. Tillett labored that it may be of 


interest just here to refer to. 
(111) 


112 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


In those days the great majority of the people 
lived on the farms, and their one industry was agri- 
culture. Manufacturing, as a distinct industry, was 
for the most part unknown among them, although 
much of it was actually carried on in practically every 
household and upon all the plantations, but without 
a thought of its being anything more than a part of 
the agricultural life of the people; for most households 
were engaged in the manufacture of woolen, cotton, 
and linen goods for wearing apparel. Not only was 
the clothing, even to hats and shoes, made at home; 
but the implements of agriculture, plows, hoes, 
harrows, and all such like things were made on the 
farms or in the shops of the villages and the cross- 
roads. The utter lack of transportation facilities, 
if there had been no other consideration, made such 
life an absolute necessity. 

In this day of the automobile, with sand-clay and 
hard-surface roads in every section of the State and 
trunk line railroads easily in reach of all, it is hard to 
conceive of conditions eighty-seven years ago when 
John Tillett became a Methodist preacher. The 
roads—so called for want of a more appropriate 
name—were rough in summer and often impassable 
in winter. And the only means of getting produce 
to market was by hauling it in wagons over these all 
but impassable roads to Charleston or Camden, 
S. C., Fayetteville and Wilmington, N. C., and 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 118 


Petersburg, Va. Petersburg, at that time, was a 
great tobacco market, where the farmers rolled their 
tobacco in hogsheads. 

Eighty-seven years agorailroads in North Carolina, 
as in every other part of the world, were in their 
infancy. The Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, 
chartered in 1833 and completed several years later, 
was the longest railroad anywhere up to that time 
constructed under one charter. The Raleigh and 
Gaston road entered Raleigh in 1840. Ground was 
broken at Greensboro in 1851 for the North Carolina 
Railroad, which ran from Charlotte through Greens- 
boro and Raleigh into Eastern Carolina. 

In fact, up to the middle of the nineteenth century 
transportation facilities were such that the marketing 
consumed all the profits in agriculture, and some 
freely prophesied that North Carolina would never 
become a great commercial State. 

This opinion on the part of not a few seemed to be 
confirmed by the constant emigration, which reduced 
the gain in population in the State from 1833 to 
1840 to two and a half per cent. The tides of emi- 
gration flowed continuously into the great Middle 
West, where free lands and the enticing stories of the 
fertility of the soil caused the people to go by the 
thousands never to return. It has been said that in 
1845 one-third of the people of Indiana were from 
North Carolina. Even now one can find the de- 

8 


114 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


scendants of North Carolinians in practically every 
community from the Appalachian Mountains to the 
Golden Gate on the west and Canada in the north. 

Yet, in spite of the utter lack of means of trans- 
portation and the heavy drain through emigration, 
there were until the Civil War evidences of progress 
in the Old North State, especially in education and 
religion. For there was a growing desire on the part 
of the more progressive citizens for a better system 
of education in the State. The “old field” school, 
with its haphazard methods and limited curriculum, 
to say nothing of incompetent teachers, had served 
a good purpose in giving large numbers of the youth 
of the country an acquaintance with the “three R’s, 
reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic,” but this method of 
education had come to be recognized as inadequate. 
And foremost among the leaders in an effort for a 
better system were the ministers of the gospel. 

If evidence of this should be desired, it can be 
found in the fact that the Churches were leaders in 
the establishment of schools and colleges, as we 
have already had occasion to observe. Wake Forest, 
a Baptist College, opened its doors in 1834; Davidson, 
a Presbyterian College, and Guilford, a Quaker 
College, in 1837; Normal College, which a few years 
later became Trinity College, a Methodist institution, 
was established in 1838; Greensboro, a Methodist 
college for girls, began its work of education in 1846, 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 115 


With these evidences of educational progress came 
the organization of the Baptist State Convention 
and also the organization of the North Carolina 
Conference, which indicated a growing sense of unity 
and a desire for increased effectiveness on the part 
of these Churches in the State. It was also a period 
of numerical gain for the Methodist Church, which in 
1840 had in the North Carolina Conference approxi- 
mately fifteen thousand members, while twenty 
years later the membership was thirty thousand. 
To double its membership in twenty years amid the 
constant drain through emigration is a remarkably 
fine showing. 

And among those consecrated spirits and men of 
outstanding ability who were ushering in a new day 
for public schools, building colleges, and doubling 
the membership of the Methodist Church was 
John Tillett, whose remarkable life of loyalty and 
service to the Church extended beyond the trying 
days of the Civil War and spanned those memorable 
years of reconstruction when poverty and lawless- 
ness sat enthroned upon the wrecks of war, and the 
Tron Duke became a leader among those heroic 
spirits who, though cramped by poverty, battled 
bravely for the right and all the finer things of life. 

And wherever he labored one would naturally and 
logically expect the influence of John Tillett to 


116 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


abide even through successive generations. And it. 
was So. 

In Iredell County, where he began his itinerant 
career and where he returned later for two other 
pastorates, the traditions of his matchless service 
linger among those foothills and are often fondly 
recalled by his former parishioners and their neigh- 
bors; and their children, now grown to manhood and 
womanhood, repeat them as among the most vivid 
recollections of their childhood in connection with 
preachers of a former generation. 

The town of Durham witnessed some of the storm- 
iest days of his long and eventful life, but after the 
storms came the sunshine and a better day that 
abides. Many of those in that community who had 
taken offense at his plain preaching and had joined 
in the criticism and opposition raised against him 
came later to see and to acknowledge that his brave 
ministry and courageous denunciations of prevalent 
sins had cleared and purified the moral atmosphere 
of the place like a terrific moral thunderstorm 
and laid the ethical foundations for a better type of 
citzenship and a cleaner, purer type of social life 
in the entire community. The gospel of gentleness 
and love had its place in his ministry, but not until 
after the besetting sins and corrupting vices of the 
people had been probed and the surgeon’s knife 
applied. 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 117 


Among the members of the Methodist Church 
living at Durham when John Tillett was the pastor, 
one is worthy of special mention. Dr. Wilbur F. 
Tillett, writing at our request of this period of his 
father’s life, has referred to this honored Meth- 
odist and well-known citizen of Durham in words 
which we do well to quote: 


My father’s pastorate at Durham covered from the fifteenth 
to the seventeenth year of my life. At the end of this period 
he was sent by the Bishop to Lumberton, and I went to 
Trinity College and entered the Freshman class, where I had 
Walter Hines Page, Joseph G. Brown, Will R. Odell, and 
other cherished friends as classmates. 

Among the plain, sturdy, straightforward members of the 
Methodist Church at Durham at that time whom my father 
esteemed most highly for their sterling character was the late 
Washington Duke, to whose generosity Trinity College is 
indebted for the funds that made possible its removal from 
its former rather inaccessible location in Randolph County 
to its present advantageous and commanding site in the town 
of Durham. This man, whose name is now so justly and so 
highly honored in North Carolina Methodism, was typically 
American in that he rose from obscurity and poverty by 
dint of diligence, economy, and business foresight to a place 
of large influence in the commercial world. And yet the busi- 
ness success and wealth which he attained was but small 
compared with the much larger wealth and financial eminence 
that has been attained by his two sons, James B. and Benja- 
min, whom he took into copartnership with him and trained 
in business which expanded greatly after the death of Wash- 
ington Duke. These sons owe their great success in the 


118 The Iron Duke of the Methodist I tinerancy 


financial world in no small degree to the plain, sturdy Chris- 
tian character of their father. He was a man not of many 
words, but of deeds; and he was often heard to speak in high 
terms of approval and admiration of the courageous char- 
acter and the plain preaching of his pastor, the itinerant 
preacher whom you describe as “the Iron Duke of the 
Methodist itinerancy.”’ 

And, by the way, there comes to me, as I think of Mr. 
Washington Duke, a vivid recollection I have of hearing him 
later in life tell of how in the humble and toilsome days of 
poverty when as a farmer he took his crop of tobacco to 
Raleigh in a covered wagon and sold it for what would later 
have been considered a bare pittance. He said that on these 
trips he always bought and brought back with him a good sup- 
ply of brown sugar; and on arriving at home and unloading he 
would place a pound or two of the brown sugar on a sheet of 
wrapping paper on the floor in the middle of the room and 
bid his children help themselves. He said it was fun to see 
*“Buck and Ben” go for that brown sugar. This was when 
“‘Buck and Ben” were small boys. They are multimillion- 
aires now; but these boys, now grown to be men of great 
wealth, still have, we have good reason for believing, their 
father’s high opinion of the good and great work done by itin- 
erant Methodist circuit riders; and Durham, now grown 
large and great, was in those days simply one of several preach- 
ing places on a circuit. One of the much appreciated char- 
acteristics of these sons of Washington Duke is their deep 
interest in the old and superannuated Methodist preachers, 
while what they have done and are still doing for Trinity 
College constitutes one of the greatest present and prospective 
educational assets not only of North Carolina Methodism, 
but of the entire Southern Methodist Church. 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 119 


At one time and another John Tillett traveled wide 
stretches of Eastern Carolina about Beaufort, Tar- 
boro, Smithfield, Henderson, Carthage, Rocking- 
ham, and other important points; and everywhere 
he labored the descendants of those to whom he 
ministered in holy things hold his name in grateful 
remembrance. 

Rev. W. L. Sherrill, of the Western North Carolina 
Conference, at one time stationed at Mocksville, 
the county seat of Davie County, as pastor of the 
Methodist Church, is a man of rare gifts in the esti- 
mate of historical values and in the accurate de- 
lineation of character. Mr. Sherrill has this to say of 
John Tillett: 


He is remembered in Davie County as a veritable preacher 
of the law and of the terrible end of the impenitent sinner. 
He was as uncompromising in his attitude against evil as was 
John the Baptist. He was a stickler for rigid observance of 
the rules of the Church. He was a terror to the liquor drinker 
and the liquor seller, but his earnestness was so tense that he 
overpowered the distiller with argument and appeal to con- 
science, in an age when it was not a violation of public senti- 
ment to make and sell and drink the accursed stuff. 

Two men in Davie County who were distillers were per- 
suaded by him to renounce the business. They both became 
very devout and very useful local preachers, and their de- 
scendants to the third and fourth generations are now loyal 
and trusted members of the Church, and several of them are 
now official members of the Mocksville Church. 

I do not think that “‘Uncle Tillett,” as many young people 


120 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


fondly called him, was always tactful; but he was always 
honest and courageous, and he commanded the confidence 
of men, which gave power to his utterance. An indication of 
his popularity was that parents in large numbers named their 
children for him, He was an old-fashioned Methodist who 
held to the class meeting and the Friday fast day and was one 
of a line of circuit riders who laid the foundations of a solid 
Methodist citizenship in Davie, Iredell, and other counties 
where he preached. A remarkable man was he—educated, 
consecrated, courageous to the point of daring, afraid of noth- 
ing but sin, every inch a man—foursquare, true to God, his 
fellows, and himself. 

Nathan, one of the Old Testament prophets, en- 
joys a wide and justly earned reputation for direct 
and pointed rebuke of offenders, especially of those 
in high places; but in John Tillett was to be found 
the equal of that fearless Hebrew prophet. What 
John Knox was to Scotland John Tillett was to 
North Carolina Methodism. From every section of 
the State where the Church sent this circuit rider to 
labor come even to this distant day echoes of the 
sledge-hammer blows that he struck for God and 
righteousness. Nor was the influence of his life and 
ministry confined to the Methodist Church. 

Mr. A. R. Foushee, a prominent citizen and Bap- 
tist layman of Roxboro, North Carolina, writes: 

Rev. John Tillett, pastor of the Person Circuit, Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, about 1862 or 1863 (I think), 
made his home in Roxboro during these years. He was a 
man of solid character and honest convictions, a terror to 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 121 


evildoers, a great foe to whisky in every form, advocate of 
temperance and prohibition, often referring to this subject 
in his sermons. He insisted on honesty among the people in 
their dealings with each other, was faithful in his work as pas- 
tor of his Churches, also as a fellow citizen, and was popular 
with the best people of the community. He was true in his 
devotion to the cause of the South during the Civil War; 
a good preacher and helper in every good word and work. 


Rev. R. F. Bumpas, one of the leading and most 
highly esteemed members of the North Carolina 
Conference and a man with the gift of accuracy 
in his recollections of men and events, gives his 
estimate of Mr. Tillett as follows: 


I knew Brother Tillett well. He was a frequent guest in 
my mother’s home in my childhood. He was a Methodist 
preacher of the stalwart type—no compromise with him. He 
believed in a positive religion, holiness of heart and life, family 
piety, no worldliness. He was a man of dauntless courage. 
He made war on sin wherever found and carried the war into 
the camp of the enemy. He was particularly outspoken 
against the prevailing forms of iniquity, against intemperance 
and the liquor traffic. 

Rev. Jesse Cuninggim, who was of all his ministe- 
rial brethren most intimately associated with him 
during the last years of his life, said: 

John Tillett was a remarkably strong and successful 
Methodist preacher. In an important sense he was unique. 
His sense of obligation in observing his vows as a Methodist 


preacher both in the spirit and the letter was intense. In 
preaching the word of God as embodied in the General Rules, 


122 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


and in enforcing the Discipline, as he construed it to apply 
to the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made him an 
overseer, he had no peer in the North Carolina Conference. 
During his last pastorate he made this statement: “‘The 
Master knows all; he approves, and I am willing to meet my 
record at his bar.’”’ His conscience compelled him to “cry 
aloud and spare not.”” He preached his convictions without 
regard to the social character or position of any offender. 
The purity of the Church was greatly improved wherever he 
labored, while many were added to it under his ministry, such 
as shall be forever saved. 


But the man who, on account of long personal 
acquaintance and intimate associations with John 
Tillett in his prime, is best of all qualified to give a 
true and just estimate of his old friend and pastor, 
is one to whom reference has already been made— 
Hon. William R. Webb, founder of the famous 
Webb School at Bellbuckle, Tennessee, who began 
his illustrious career as a teacher in his native State, 
but moved in 1870 to Tennessee, where his phenome- 
nal work during the past half century has become an 
important part of the history of education in the 
South. * 


*We yield to the temptation to insert here one among the 
many unique and interesting incidents characteristic of the 
experience and work of this remarkable teacher of boys. 
It is of the early days of his school in Tennessee, when times 
were hard and the people had little money. The fees in those 
days were paid more frequently in “kind” than in cash. A 
boy from the backwoods hill country came to the school one 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 128 


One needs only to hear Professor Webb talk of his 
old friend and pastor of other years to realize how 
profoundly John Tillett left the impress of his life 
and ministry upon those who came under his in- 
fluence and heard him preach those impassioned 
sermons that burned with moral courage and that 
made no compromises with unrighteousness. 

Mr. Webb writes as follows: 


My father and mother were members of the Methodist 
Church. John Tillett was the preacher on that circuit in my 
infancy, and I was baptized by him. I have often heard my 
parents speak of him with great love and admiration. 

He was a man of great decision of character and of undaunt- 
ed and indomitable courage, preaching the truth of the gospel 
without fear or favor. Brother Tillett preached against the 
sins of the people with whom he was associated and preached 
with great power. He preached against the theater, against 
the circus, against dancing, against all worldly and sinful 


day dragging by a rope halter a heifer almost as scrawny as 
the boy himself and pleaded: ‘‘Mr. Webb, I want to go to 
school. I ain’t got no money; but I wonder if you will let 
me ‘larn up’ this cow?”’ He was allowed to “‘larn up”’ that 
cow, while the boy boarders ate up the cow in the form 
of regulation roast beef and good old-fashioned boarding house 
hash. And the schooling made a man of that boy, as it has 
done of many other boys who have “larned up” cows and 
hogs and sheep and mules and corn and wheat and other 
commodities which were received as payment of fees “in 
kind.” Professor Webb is best known among his students as 
“Old Sawney.” It is with them a term of endearment. 


124 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


amusements, against extravagence in habits of life, in dress, 
against luxurious self-indulgence; hence he brought about a 
great deal of antagonism against himself personally. 

While he was traveling a circuit including a small town 
which has since become a flourishing city, he once, on an in- 
clement Sabbath, had as part of his small congregation six 
or seven tobacco buyers who had gone into bankruptcy to 
get out of paying honest debts which the preacher thought 
they were able to pay and should pay. Brother Tillett took 
for his text, ‘‘Pay what thou owest.” He preached vigorously 
and forcefully on the debts which men owe first to God and 
secondly to their fellow men, and among the latter he included 
not only social and religious obligations, but just financial 
debts. He then asked the oratorical question, “‘How would 
a bankrupt feel walking the golden streets of heaven—one 
who had gone into bankruptcy to get out of paying an honest 
debt?” 

As a consequence of this sermon, and like utterances made 
elsewhere, he was charged with unwarranted personalities in 
the pulpit, and even with untruthfulness, by the men whom 
he had offended, and they brought charges against him for 
falsehood and slander. The offending preacher, as a result 
of these charges, was called to trial before an ecclesiastical 
court. When the farmers of the surrounding country heard 
of it, they came for twenty miles around to the trial to back 
Brother Tillett up. These men had received bankrupt 
notices in payment for their tobacco. Such a multitude 
possibly had never before assembled at a Church trial 
in that vicinity. That eminent Christian lawyer and cul- 
tured gentleman, Judge John W. Hayes of Oxford, acted 
as his counsel. It is needless to say that the accused preacher 
was acquitted. Public sentiment demanded it. Some of his 
comments and criticisms on the bankrupts might have been 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 125 


needlessly severe, but they were not proved to be untrue. 


The trial added to, rather than detracted from, his moral 
power in the community. 


Mr. Webb continues: 


In my efforts to found a school in Tennessee, in the days of 
saloons and distilleries and breweries, I oftentimes became 
greatly distressed over questions of discipline and oftentimes 
was almost in despair in my discouragement. In one period 
of great depression of spirits, I went back to my old country 
home at ‘“‘The Oaks,” Orange County, North Carolina. 
Father Tillett was then the pastor on that circuit. He 
preached four miles from my mother’s home on a hot, sultry 
August afternoon. I remember that I almost fainted as I 
rode an old farm plug horse in a slow walk through the broiling 
sun to hear my old pastor again. He took for his text, 
“Let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall 
reap, if we faint not.”” His sermon was, as usual, sui generis. 
There was nobody else like him. I remember the scorn he 
expressed for a weakling who had no more backbone than a 
limp piece of calico or a fishing worm. His sermon was truly 
characteristic of the preacher and thoroughly adapted to my 
state of feeling; and I went home stimulated and prepared by 
that sermon to take up my work afresh, no matter what 
might be the discouragement or sacrifice. 


Professor Webb relates one other story which we 


must insert: 

Just after the Civil War, in that section of the State where 
Johnson surrendered, both armies left that country stripped 
of everything; crops were destroyed, smokehouses were bare, 
poultry yards were empty. There were no goods in the stores, 
and few work animals or animals of any description were left 
in the country. Virtually there was nothing left but dirt, 


126 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


John Tillett’s circuit lay in that devastated district. He hada 
growing family of several children who needed training and 
education. He himself was a member of the second Fresh- 
man Class that entered Randolph-Macon College, where he 
four years later graduated, and no man set higher value on 
Christian education than he did. With his own family at an 
age when it was education now or never, his income was 
exceedingly slender, barely enough to furnish food for the 
table. 

On one occasion his steward handed him a twenty-dollar 
gold piece, which was an unusually large sum in those days 
for anybody to have, much less to pay the preacher. His 
steward told him that it had been sent him by a saloon keeper 
in the neighborhood. Brother Tillett divined the motive in 
the gift. With distilleries innumerablein the community and 
with saloons at almost every crossroad, he had assailed the 
liquor traffic with such vigor as only a man with his strong 
and forceful character could. He took the twenty-dollar 
gold piece, rode to the saloon, called the saloon keeper out to 
the road and returned it to him. He told him that he did not 
care to have his family supported by money earned in that 
way. This is the first time that I ever heard of tainted money. 


This tribute of a Methodist layman like William 
R. Webb to a Methodist itinerant preacher like 
John Tillett certainly makes interesting reading. 
The last incident referred to by Mr. Webb became so 
famous and was so often referred to by friends and 
acquaintances of John Tillett that it came to have 
more than one version; or perhaps it is more accurate 
to say that two incidents of this kind occurred in the 
life of this anti-saloon pioneer preacher which are 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 127 


confused, but which need to be distinguished. Thus 
we often hear it said that on one occasion a saloon 
keeper offered Mr. Tillett ten dollars with the remark, 
“*T made this selling liquor,” whereupon the resource- 
ful minister is said to have taken the money and, 
holding it in his hand, looked at the liquor seller 
and said: “‘Well, I suppose this money has been 
serving the devil long enough. I will take it now and 
make it serve God and his kingdom.” 

In their recollections of John Tillett, both Rev. 
Robah F.. Bumpas, of the North Carolina Conference, 
and Mr. A. R. Foushee, of Roxboro, North Carolina, 
mentioned this incident substantially as last given. 

Dr. Wilbur F. Tillett, of Vanderbilt University, in 
speaking of his father, also refers to it, but explains 
that the saloon keeper, in the last instance cited, in 
offering the gift, expressed the approval of the work 
of the preacher in the community, even if he did 
condemn him and his business, and at the same time 
urged him to continue to preach what he thought was 
right. The preacher felt that under conditions like 
this he was more likely to influence the saloon 
keeper for good by taking his money than by refus- 
ing it. The sequel proved that he was right, for 
later the saloon keeper gave up his disreputable 
business. 

Dr. Tillett adds: 

This incident in my father’s life has often been alluded to 


128 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


and the remark referred to quoted from him. But it should 
never be quoted except with some such explanation as I 
have given. My father never sought or desired the gifts of 
men engaged in what he regarded as a sinful business; and 
if such people ever offered him money for his own support 
or for the work of the Church under conditions that would in 
any way embarrass him in preaching a full, clean, complete 
gospel, or in denouncing any and every line of business or 
form of pleasure that he thought sinful, he declined to take 
the money. This I knew him to do more than once. 

For instance, on one occasion there was conducted by a club 
or group of men, in the town where he lived at the time, a 
kind of lottery which my father regarded as a species of 
gambling; and, as was his custom, he let his views of that 
business be known in a sermon which he preached. He 
thought the club with its frequent lotteries was demoralizing 
the young men of the town. The gentlemen engaged in the 
lottery chuckled to themselves when they heard of the ser- 
mon and said that they would put a quietus on the Method- 
ist parson’s objection to their business. Whereupon they 
proceeded to raise a liberal sum through their lottery, divided 
it up equally, and sent it to the different pastors of the town 
as a present from the club. They sent my father, with their 
compliments, the sum of seventy-five dollars, his share of the 
proceeds; but they did not know their man. He prompily 
but politely returned it to them with a note, giving, in 
plain but courteous words, his views of their business. One 
other pastor of the town, it was reported, not only accepted 
his portion, but wrote them a cordial note of thanks for their 
generous gift. 


It was things like this that gave John Tillett moral 
influence of a far-reaching kind in every community 


The Impress and Impact of His Character 129 


where he lived and preached. It also caused com- 
ment and criticism on every pastoral charge that 
he ever served during the half century of his itinerant 
ministry. Though he has been dead now for nearly 
thirty-five years, there can still be heard stories and 
traditions about him and his preaching, all illustrat- 
ing, with varying degrees of accuracy, traits of minis- 
terial character such as those here portrayed. 
9 


VIII 
THE EVANGELISTIC PASTOR 


VIII 
THE EVANGELISTIC PASTOR 


METHODISM had its beginning, not, as is frequently 
asserted, in the Holy Club, at Oxford, but in the 
warmed heart of John Wesley. This warming of his 
heart was to Wesley a “strange” experience, but to 
his followers it became a familiar, if not a common- 
place, occurrence. 

Furthermore, that spiritual experience of John 
Wesley, which marked the beginning of Methodism, 
was at the same time the birth-hour of a new evan- 
gelism. Not only did John Wesley become a flaming 
evangelist, but the men associated with him and those 
Wesleyan preachers who came after him were on 
fire with evangelistic fervor and became effective 
messengers to a sinful and lost world. 

This was emphatically true on the American 
continent, where society was in a plastic state, free 
from the restraints of fixed customs and habits 
which characterized an older and more highly 
organized social life. That primitive civilization, 
unpolished, but at the same time unsophisticated and 
unspoiled, welcomed all and set an open door before 
every man. The great virgin continent, whose 
widely scattered pioneers were full of hope, unsatis- 
fied, but unafraid, and who dared great things, be- 

(133) 


184 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


came the broad and inviting territory for the Meth- 
odist preacher, with his typical gospel message 
which always laid emphasis upon repentance and 
faith and upon a direct witness of the Holy Spirit. 

And it is truly amazing how the work spread as 
these men, most of them young men with little 
experience, except the experience of the love of God 
in their hearts, went preaching and organizing 
Churches wherever the pioneer settler had pitched 
his cabin in the wilderness. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church in America, 
organized at the “Christmas Conference” in Balti- 
more in 1784, set itself at once to the task of covering 
every part of the country, no matter how sparsely 
settled, with a net work of circuits and under the 
matchless leadership of Francis Asbury sent the 
circuit rider to every nook and corner of this broad 
land. At the very time that the foundations of the 
new American nation were being laid, the Method- 
ist preacher was on hand to join as a builder of the 
nation as well as of the kingdom of God. 

And these early Methodists, with their new em- 
phasis upon evangelism, were tremendously in 
earnest and at the same time were fully persuaded 
that the King’s business required haste. 

What Bishop Coke recorded in his Journal con- 
cerning Hope Hull, a young itinerant preacher, re- 


The Evangelistic Pastor 135 


veals the true ideal set for Methodist preachers in 
those early days of our history. Bishop Coke wrote: 

Mr. Hull is young, but is indeed a flame of fire. He appears 
always on the stretch for the salvation of souls. Our only 
fear concerning him is that the sword is too keen for the 
scabbard—that he may lay himself out far beyond his 
strength. Two years ago he was sent to a circuit in South 
Carolina which we were ready to despair of; but he, with a 
young colleague (Mastin), of like spirit with himself, raised 
that circuit to a degree of importance equal to that of almost 
any in the Southern States. 


Of these early Methodists, an old “Ironside” 
Baptist preacher once said that the Methodists beat 
any set of folk that he ever saw—that they “would 
put up a brush arbor, roll a few logs together for 
seats, nail a book-board between two trees, go to 
singing and preaching, and have half a dozen folk 
converted before even the Lord knew what they were 
doing.” 

That may be a bit extravagant, but the story is 
highly suggestive. Those early Methodist preachers 
believed with all their hearts in revival meetings and 
made it their great business to call sinners to re- 
pentance. And the ideals and practices of the 
fathers were still maintained among Methodists in the 
days of John Tillett; and our Iron Duke, like all true 
Methodist preachers, knew how to conduct successful 
revival meetings; for he held some very remarkable 
revivals in the Churches that he served. 


136 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


Hitherto little has been said about his work as an 
evangelist. It would be a grave omission not to 
speak of it; for the prophet of righteousness, who so 
frequently encamped upon the slopes of Sinai and 
got from it some of his fire and his thunder, was 
familiar also with another mount—the Mount of 
Redemption—where the Saviour of men was lifted 
up that he might draw all men unto himself. If he 
preached much to the people about their sins, he 
never failed to follow such sermons with an appeal 
to them to turn away from their sins and to “be- 
hold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin 
of the world”; and reminded them how he “came 
not into the world to condemn the world, but that 
the world through him might be saved.” 

As a faithful Methodist preacher he held aloft 
the Cross of Calvary. In him stirred those warm 
impulses of the Good Shepherd’s heart that sent him 
after the sheep that were lost. Revival meetings of 
wonderful power sometimes marked the history of 
his pastorates. Many of the most useful men and 
women of Methodism in North Carolina were con- 
verted in revivals that took place under his ministry, 
and that were conducted largely by himself alone, 
so far as ministerial help was concerned. 

Of unusual interest in this connection is one notable 
revival that occurred while he was a pastor at Ox- 
ford, North Carolina, a few years after the close of 


The Evangelistic Pastor 137 


the Civil War. Preliminary to a description of the 
revival are several other items of interest that are 
really introductory to the vivid story that follows 
and which we are fortunate to have accurately and 
fully described by Prof. W. R. Webb, who was, as 
we have already seen, an official member of that 
Church at the time. Mr. Webb says: 


“When Rev. John Tillett was sent to the Granville Circuit 
in 1866 as preacher in charge, he found the Methodists in 
Oxford, where the parsonage was located, worshiping in a 
shack. They owed it to themselves to have a more com- 
modious, comfortable, and attractive place of worship. Ox- 
ford was at the time one of the most prosperous towns in the 
State of North Carolina. Brother Tillett, Presiding Elder 
Hendren, and myself met with Mr. J. H. Horner, the principal 
of the Horner School, and sold him the Methodist Church 
with all its belongings, the lot included, for one thousand 
dollars, on condition that it should meet the approval of the 
trustees. The trustees approved, the old church was im- 
mediately delivered to Mr. Horner, and the Methodist con- 
gregation began at once the erection of a new church, wor- 
shiping in the meantime in the Presbyterian Church, the use 
of which on alternate Sundays was cordially extended to them 
by Mr. Hall, the pastor, and his Session. The new church 
was soon erected in a more desirable part of the town. 

In the fall after the dedication Brother Tillett started his 
protracted meeting without any assistance from other 
preachers. As was his custom, he vigorously condemned in his 
preaching the sins of which his congregation were guilty. In 
those days of distilleries and saloons, church services were 
frequently disturbed by thoughtless young people and some- 


138 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


times by older men who were “‘in their cups.”’ Brother Tillett 
looked upon church services as a very serious matter and 
sometimes rebuked with very great severity those who dis- 
turbed the service. On one occasion, after several times 
requesting some young people in the back of the church who 
were engaged in audible conversation to desist, and his re- 
quest not being heeded, he left the pulpit, walked to the back 
of the church, stood in the pew next to them, and said, 
“T will see that you don’t disturb this service any further,” 
and from that point finished his sermon with his back to his 
audience. It had the desired effect, not only for that particular 
service, but for other services that followed. 

After preaching with great vigor and force for eight or ten 
days without any visible results, he made what he supposed 
to be his last talk. He told the people of their sinful lives and 
of the impending doom before them. He pleaded with very 
great power for them to change their lives and said that he had 
done his best, that his skirts were clear, and that when he 
should meet them at the great judgment he could tell them 
that he had done his duty to the best of his knowledge and 
ability. Then he said, ‘‘The exercises of this protracted 
meeting will close with prayer.” He led the prayer. 

Such a prayer I never heard. Having the habit of kneeling 
at prayer, I knew of nothing that was going on except his 
earnest pleadings with God. He seemed to have hold of the 
horns of the altar. First, a silence that could be felt, after- 
wards a rustling noise and quite a moving among the people, 
and when the prayer closed I arose to find that at least one- 
third of the audience were kneeling at the altar and calling on 
God for mercy. I have been a member of the Methodist 
Church for nearly seventy years, and I attended in early life 
some of the famous camp meetings and revival services of 
those days, but I never witnessed a scene like this. 


The Evangelistic Pastor §  ~—«:189 


' Brother Tillett told them that he would continue the 
meeting, and did so. His services attracted immense audi- 
ences, people coming from all over the country. After he 
worked himself down he sent for Rev. Adolphus W. Mangrum, 
a young minister of great oratory and fine delivery, who was 
a member of the Conference and who was, at that time, serv- 
ing as preacher in charge of Orange Circuit, about fifteen 
miles from Oxford. He afterwards became Professor of 
English and Rhetoric in the University of North Carolina. 
I can recall his sermons to this day and how greatly he aided 
the exhausted pastor during the continuance of the revival 
for some three weeks longer. That revival was the beginning 
of a great forward movement in the Methodist Church at 
Oxford. 

I have never seen a revival equal to it. I have never seen 
one that even approximated it. It revolutionized Oxford. 
It revolutionized the county round about. It involved all 
classes of the community, both young and old. It included 
among those reached by it the Episcopal school in which I 
was a teacher. It included the young men and the young 
ladies of the town and surrounding country. Among those 
whom I saw at the altar and who professed religion at that 
meeting was the fourteen-year-old son of the preacher, then 
a pupil in the Horner School. This fourteen-year-old boy, 
converted in the Oxford meeting, was none other than Dr. 
Wilbur F. Tillett, whose broad views and writings on religion 
have affected the entire Southern country, including all de- 
nominations, and a man who has done more for the uplift 
of the younger ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, than any other man in its history. 


An eyewitness has given a graphic account of 
perhaps the most remarkable episode that ever oc- 


140 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


curred in connection with a revival conducted by 
John Tillett. Although it is over half a century since 
it occurred, it is vividly recalled by every one who 
was present. The following account of this remark- 
able incident is furnished by Professor Webb: 


There was living in the town at the time this revival oc- 
curred a distinguished ex-minister of the gospel and doctor of 
divinity. He had been raised in that town. His early life 
had been one of dissipation. He belonged to an Episcopal 
family of high social standing. He had been converted at a 
Methodist revival in his young days and, to the surprise of 
everybody, not only joined the Methodist Church, but became 
later a minister and member of the North Carolina Conference. 
I have never met a man better posted in literature than he. 
He was a polished conversationalist, a fine preacher, an able 
writer, and filled good appointments in the Conference for 
one so young. Imagine the surprise of his people when he 
suddenly announced his decision to join the Baptist Church, 
and the State was sowed down with a book written by him, 
entitled ‘‘Why I Became a Baptist.’”’ He filled afterwards 
one of the most important appointments in the Baptist Church 
in this State and later was called to serve as pastor of a promi- 
nent Church in a Western State. He had a large family and 
was dependent entirely upon his salary for support. He had 
not been away from the State long before he returned un- 
expectedly with his family, and there was great astonishment 
and surprise that he was there without employment. It soon 
became evident why he had returned: he had become a victim 
of his old habits of dissipation again. 

One night he came to the revival meeting which was being 
conducted by Brother Tillett alone. After a sermon of un- 
usual power and the eall for penitents had been given and 


The Evangelistic Pastor 141 


great numbers were flocking to the altar, this distinguished 
ex-divine and doctor of divinity rose on the back seat and said, 
“Brother Tillett, may I say a word? You know that I used to 
stand in the pulpit and preach to sinners.”’ 

Brother Tillett quickly responded, ‘‘ Yes, and I want to see 
you stand there again and preach to sinners,”’ rushed down the 
aisle to meet him, and, putting his arms around him, carried 
him up to the pulpit and tried to get him to enter in order 
that he might say a word. But he paused: he would not go 
into the pulpit. He turned to the audience—he was one of the 
handsomest men I ever saw—stood for a long time in perfect 
silence, with tears running down his cheeks, and finally said: 
“T will kneel at the altar, where I belong.’’ And with that he 
fell upon his knees, and Brother Tillett knelt beside him and 
put his arms about him. The mighty transforming power of 
divine grace was soon manifest in the result that followed their 
united prayers, which result was followed a little later by his 
reception into the Methodist Church as a private member. 

It is not difficult to imagine what an impression this scene 
made upon the large audience that was present and completely 
filled the house, and indeed upon the whole community and 
surrounding country, for so marvelous and unprecedented a 
revival scene as this was quickly noised abroad. 

The restoration of this gifted and distinguished man to the 
fellowship of Christian people was not followed by his re- 
entering the ministry, but was followed by lifelong fidelity 
to the vows of Church membership which he then assumed 
and by a life of modest but useful and honored literary toil. 
One of his daughters, a most gifted and brilliant woman, 
married an itinerant Methodist preacher, and his son in 
turn is now filling a place of great responsibility and high 
honor in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South. A tender and beautiful friendship existed ever there- 


142 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


after between John Tillett and this remarkable man whose 
checkered career was crowned during the years which followed 
his reunion with the Church by the respect and honor of all 
who were associated with him. Many years ago death 
reunited them in the land where faithful preachers and their 
converts have blessed and eternal fellowship. 


The first task to which John Tillett set himself in 
beginning, a revival was to get the Church right. 
The sins and immoralities of Church members were 
more culpable and open to condemnation in his esti- 
mation than the sins of those who made no profession 
to being Christians. Judgment with him began at the 
house of God. He regarded nothing as more fatal 
to vital godliness in a community and to the pro- 
motion of a revival of pure and undefiled religion 
for the salvation of sinners than to have the Church 
to number among its members those whose lives were 
utterly inconsistent with the vows of Church mem- 
bership and incompatible with any true profession 
of personal salvation. 

It often happened in pastoral charges to which he 
was assigned that neighborhood feuds had brought 
farmers and planters whose lands joined each other 
into such enmity that they were not on speaking 
terms, and sometimes he found these personal ene- 
mies members of his own Church?* 


*Disagreement over fences dividing neighboring farms was 
long a fruitful cause of neighborhood and family feuds in the 
South. Often, therefore, between two adjoining farms in 


The Evangelistic Pastor 143 


In a Church and neighborhood whose religious 
life was marred and scandalized by such unneigh- 
borly and unchristian enmities as this he regarded a 
successful revival of religion as a moral impossi- 
bility; and if such conditions as these were found to 
exist in a pastorate to which he was assigned, they 
received his first attention. Such conditions must 
be removed before he felt justified in inviting sinners 
to come to the altar for prayer. Souls could not be 
converted in a spiritual ice house or an atmosphere 
hot with hate. John Tillett’s first revival, therefore, 
was inside the Church, and many of his most useful 
converts were found among those who were already 
in the Church. In not a few pastoral charges which 
he served it turned out that the best work he did 
during his first year was to Christianize and spiritual- 
ize and ethicize the membership of the Church, 
while revivals of religion that reached outsiders and 
former days were to be seen two high rail fences where only 
one was necessary. A little long narrow lane lay between the 
two. John Tillett frequently referred to such a lane as “‘the 
devil’s race track,” up and down which he described the devil 
as racing in high glee just so long as he could keep neighbors 
quarreling so over their respective shares in a common fence 
that they could not agree; hence each man built his own com- 
plete fence. Any cleavage that separates neighbor from 
neighbor and makes neighborly codperation and fellowship 
impossible is ‘“‘the devil’s race track”—so John Tillett 
preached, and by his preaching and-personal pastoral influence 
he healed many a family feud. 


144 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


sinners came oftenest during a second or third year. 
The abiding and grateful affection which many of 
those who were converted under his ministry cher- 
ished for him in after years was evidenced in personal 
greetings, in friendly personal messages, and in 
occasional letters which constituted one of the joys 
of his later life. 

And he believed in putting his converts early to 
work in order to keep them saved; and recognizing 
that in their conversion they experienced “the 
expulsive power of a new and divine affection,” he 
also recognized that the mind and heart and hand 
that had been made void of things sinful by conver- 
sion must be quickly filled and continually kept 
filled with thoughts and loves and duties befitting 
the new life in Christ, or they were in danger of prov- 
ing true the one and only doctrine of Methodist 
theology which should be believed and preached, 
but never practiced—namely, the doctrine of falling 
from grace. 

He endeavored to encourage and train his con- 
verts as far as possible in public and family prayer, * 


*John Tillett used to tell of one unique case he had among 
the new converts whom he received into the Church following 
one of his revivals. He told the men who joined the Church 
at this time that he would expect each one to prepare to lead 
in public prayer—that he would call in turn on each one at the 
week-night prayer meeting and would let each man know in 
advance when he was to be called on, so that he might make 


The Evangelistic Pastor 145 


in personal evangelistic work, in habits of generous 
giving of their means, and in such forms of Church 
and community work as were open to them and called 
for by varying conditions and needs. 


special preparation for his first prayer. Among these con- 
verts who promised to lead in prayer was one who before his 
conversion had long been addicted to profanity, until the use 
of profane language had become so common with him as to 
be his natural and ordinary speech. This man wrote out his 
prayer and, having committed it to memory, held himself 
ready to respond when called upon. The preacher called on 
him at the appointedtime. He began all right, but could not 
get beyond the first sentence. After taking a fresh start two or 
three times and failing to recall the second and following 
sentences, he gave it up and brought his prayer to an abrupt 
and early end; whereupon he arose, took his seat, and in his 
embarrassment was heard to say to the person sitting next to 
him, ‘‘ Well, d—— it, I did know it, if I don’t know it now.”? 
Realizing later what he had done and how utterly inconsistent 
it was with his new life and the act of worship in which he was 
engaged to use such language, he went to his pastor in morti- 
fication and asked him to remove his name from the church 
register. But the pastor, to his great surprise, instead of 
expressing his horror at this great breach of propriety in 
religious worship, met him kindly and sympathetically and 
would not hear to his withdrawing from the Church, seeing 
that he had done no intentional wrong and that his heart was 
all right. Thus encouraged, the man remained in the Church, 
got quickly and entirely rid of his long-used vocabulary of 
profane words, and became a consistent and useful member of 
the Church. 
10 


146 The Iron Duke of the M ethodist I tinerancy 


Unfortunately the Methodist itinerancy, that has 
so many things to recommend it as a method of meet- 
ing the problem of ministerial demand and supply, 
finds here one of its weakest points, in that it so 
quickly separates a pastor from his converts in whom, 
as being in a peculiar sense his spiritual children, he 
is of course more interested and to whom he can be 
more helpful than a new and strange pastor can be. 

John Tillett not only subsoiled and plowed deep 
in his revival preaching, but he planted deep the 
seeds of spiritual truth and moral character and 
cultivated diligently the young plant that started 
its growth under his ministry. But he neglected not 
the souls of any over whom the Holy Ghost made 
him a bishop and shepherd. He believed in saving 
people in revivals of religion, but he believed, if 
anything, still more in saving men by pastoral over- 
sight and care. He believed that the conscientious, 
faithful, soul-saving pastor who confirms and guides 
and develops those already saved has a work quite 
as great and important to do for individuals and 
for the Church as the preacher whose gifts are great 
as a soul-winner, but whose work seems to end there. 
Few preachers that have ever lived and labored in 
the North Carolina Conference combined both evan- 
gelistic and pastoral gifts and graces in such a rare 
degree as did John Tillett. He believed profoundly 
in pastoral evangelism. 


IX 
IN THE CIRCUIT PARSONAGE 


IX 
IN THE CIRCUIT PARSONAGE 


THE public ministry of John Tillett stretched 
across fifty-one unbroken and eventful years and 
left an abiding impress for good in practically every 
section of his Conference. But his public career, 
though unique and outstanding in so many essential 
features, was not the measure of his life, was not 
even the best half of it. His most effectual work was 
to be found within his own household. The pulpits 
that he occupied, and from which he thundered like 
some modern John Knox, invariably became thrones 
of power in every community where he preached; 
but the little parsonages in which he and his devoted 
wife reared their children became radiating centers 
of influence that have touched the very rim of 
Christendom. 

For twenty-one years the wife of his youth and 
the mother of his nine children, two of whom died 
in infancy and a third in early youth, walked joyful- 
ly by his side and joined as only a devoted wife and 
mother can in all the duties and responsibilities of 
the home. The parsonages of those days were in 
the main small, poorly furnished, and uncomfort- 
able; the salaries were small, and only by the most 
rigid economy could the preacher and his family 

(149) 


150 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


make ends meet. When it became necessary, as it 
frequently did, to go in debt, the family lived with 
the most rigid economy till those debts were all 
paid. 

But in that home with its:plain living went high 
thinking. The library table was kept stocked with 
the best books and periodicals, even if the pantry 
and the wardrobe were bare. His children were at 
all times provided with the very best religious and 
intellectual advantages. 

Although money was scarce and rigid economy 
the watchword of that household, John Tillett never 
allowed a monetary consideration to keep him from 
sending his sons and daughters to the very best 
schools in reach. Believing, as he did, that the best 
were in the end the cheapest, he invariably chose, 
irrespective of cost, what he regarded as the best. 
And subsequent results amply justify the wisdom 
of his course. 

“My earliest recollection of my father,” says Dr. 
W. F. Tillett, ““‘was when I was between three and 
four years old and we were living at Ridgeway, 
North Carolina, in the summer of 1858. When he 
found it difficult to wake me up one morning, he 
picked me up, took me out of doors, and started me 
around the house (the parsonage) barefooted and 
in my night apparel, he running after me and bark- 
ing like a dog after a rabbit.”” This method of dealing 


In the Circuit Parsonage 151 


with the sleepy lad soon got him awake and turned 
the incident into an early morning frolic. This was 
repeated more than once as a method of waking the 
drowsy youngster. 

The foregoing incident of the nursery reveals a 
fine knowledge of child psychology and at the same 
time becomes suggestive of the one unceasing effort 
of this wise and devoted father to wake up in the 
largest sense of the term and to prepare those children 
of his for the great day of opportunity that he be- 
lieved to be theirs. 

One has only to read a few of the letters that he 
wrote his boys and girls, when students at school 
and college, to become convinced of his wisdom as a 
father and his willingness to make all sorts of sacri- 
fices in order that his sons and daughters might enjoy 
the best educational advantages. 

The two letters that follow were written to his 
daughter Laura soon after she entered Greensboro 
College as a student—one letter to her having been 
already introduced in the first chapter. 

PitTsBoRO, N. C., July 27, 1859. 

Dear Laura: I was very much pleased with Miss Ellen 
White, one of your roommates, so far as I had an opportunity 
of becoming acquainted with her. I sincerely hope that you 
will get along well with both of your roommates. I am 
satisfied that Miss White will be entirely agreeable. Please 
for my sake watch over your temper and curb it. Study to 
please your roommates and teachers. Be kind and obliging 


152 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


to the former and obedient to the latter. Sometimes you will 
be tried, and you will imagine yourself treated amiss owing to 
being yourself in a sad or fretful mood. When we are in a 
bad humor everything and everybody seem contrary and 
provoking. That is the time of all others when you must 
exert yourself to restrain your feelings and suppress the words 
that rise up and almost leap out before you are aware of 
yourself. It is now time for you to obtain control over your- 
self and no longer give way to whims and pets and pouts and 
such like. If you indulge in them, the girls will despise you; 
and I would not have you to be hated and despised for a great 
deal. It is a thousand times easier to keep a good name 
when we have it than to regain it when it is once lost. I will 
feel myself richly repaid for my trouble and expense in send- 
ing you to college if you will act in such a way as to win the 
confidence of your associates and teachers. 

Avoid all contentions and quarrels. Don’t be a tale bearer, 
telling what such a one said about such a one. You will 
make both of them your enemies. Do not meddle with the 
quarrels of others; be friendly with all if possible. Don’t 
break any of the rules of the college. If you should be be- 
trayed into a violation of any of them, be sure to confess it 
when called to account. Do not try to deceive. Be a girl of 
truth. 

Say your prayers and read your Bible. Do your part 
promptly in keeping your room fixed. 

Jeannette and Wilbur started to school to Miss Emma 
Tuesday. Wilbur says he likes to go very well. The pain 
James had in his ankle has moved up to his knee, All of us are 
tolerably well. 

We had corn soup for dinner to-day, and we all liked it 
very well. 

Your affectionate PAPA., 


In the Circuit Parsonage 153 


And here is a peep into the parsonage and a 
picture of the little things that made up the daily 
life when the children were young: 


PittsBoro, N. C., August 10, 1850. 

My Dear Daughter: Your mamma received a letter from 
you by yesterday’s mail, which we were all quite anxious to 
read. We are always glad to hear from you and hope that 
you will write as often as you can. 

Perhaps you would like to know where we all are. Well, 
I am in the parlor, your mamma is in her room holding what 
she thinks is the greatest of little babies [the reference is to 
Henry Augustus, the youngest]. James is in his room study- 
ing Cesar, for he is going to Mr. Harris again. Jeanette is 
in her room studying, for she will study some at home, 
though Miss Emma does not require it of her. Wilbur and 
Charles are asleep. Wilbur got a whipping this morning. 
He got mad with Nettie at the schoolhouse and came off 
before school, crying along the street, and his mother whipped 
him for it. He wished, no doubt, that he had not come home. 
He won’t come home crying again! 

I wish you to buy fruit whenever you need it. I think 
fruit that issound and ripe is quite healthy. Healthisa great 
blessing, and I want you to do whatever is promotive of your 
health. Very few girls set the proper value upon it and take 
due pains to preserve it. I hope that while you attend to 
your studies so as to fall behind no girl in the class you will 
also attend carefully to your health so as to have as good 
health as any of them. For our health is to a great extent in 
our own hands. 

I want my daughter to be one of the best girls in college. 

Your PAPA. 


The following letter to Wilbur, when a student at 


154 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


Trinity College, is of especial interest.* He was then 
seventeen years of age and had entered the Fresh- 
man class at this college only three weeks before 
this letter was written. 


LUMBERTON, N. C., January 23, 1872. 

Dear Wilbur: Yours of the 20th inst. came to-day with a 
letter from Charles to Augustus. We are all highly delighted 
to get letters. I am glad that you have got full employment. 
Try to be quick and thorough in your studies. Let none go 
ahead, if you can help it, but avoid the bane of envy toward 
arival. I took up, as I now believe, a false notion when I was 
in college, that promotion and distinction were dangerous to 
religion. If one allows bad feelings against a competitor to 
arise, it will no doubt destroy all the healthful points of aspira- 
tion after distinction. Again, if aspiration becomes so intense 
as to absorb the time and thought which belong to the inter- 
est of the soul and encroach upon our devotions, then aspira- 
tion becomes dangerous. But very few accomplish much 
without aiming high. 


*The name given to this son was a result and expression of 
the admiration of John Tillett for the character of Dr. Wilbur 
Fisk, the first president of Wesleyan University, Middletown, 
Conn., who when elected to the office of bishop by the General 
Conference of 1836 declined this high and coveted honor, 
saying that he could serve the kingdom of Christ more effec- 
tively in the work of Christian education in which he was 
engaged than in the episcopal office. This act of modest and 
conscientious self-renunciaton on the part of a bishop-elect 
was at that time without a precedent. In 1908 this Univer- 
sity conferred upon this namesake of its first president the 
honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. 


In the Circuit Parsonage 155 


In the meantime, don’t be discouraged by temporary 
failuresand blundersnorridiculed outofyourhighaims. One’s 
future destiny is in most cases blocked out aé college. 

Don’t be discouraged at what will at first appear to be 
utter incapacity for public speaking. I never shall forget the 
first effort of James Hardy, my classmate, in the Debating 
Society. It seemed to be an utter failure. But he had made 
up his mind to brook every difficulty in his way, and, though 
he died early, he became highly distinguished, and if he had 
lived would doubtless have been one of the leading men of 
the country. 

You will doubtless at times be much troubled about your 
want of religious enjoyment. Sincere Christians are frequent- 
ly greatly dissatisfied with their spiritual condition. Be 
ready to take your part in all religious exercises. Avoid those 
college wits who manage to be entertaining and popular 
without studying and attending to daily duties. 

I have been nearly around my circuit. Am going into the 
Lowery region to-morrow.* I have five churches in that 
region. One of my stewards was shot at by men who called 
themselves Lowery men a few nights ago. They did not aim 
to kill him, but to scare him away from where they were try- 
ing to get his cotton. 

I went by mistake into the house of a brother of Henry 
Berry Lowery last Monday. His name is Perdue. He has 
nothing to do with his brother, Henry Berry. Perdue is well 
thought of in the neighborhood. 

I am highly pleased with my circuit and am getting along 
thus far as well as I ever did on any circuit. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


*Henry Berry Lowery, a notorious bandit and outlaw, 
was terrorizing that part of the county at this time. 


156 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


Through an active ministry of forty-six years 
John Tillett never received more than twelve hundred 
dollars a year, and not that much except in a few 
rare instances. 

For a man with a salary ranging from five hundred 
to twelve hundred dollars a year to keep a horse and 
buggy, provide food and clothing for his family and 
some good books and periodicals, which to him were 
as essential as food and raiment, and then pay the 
bills for his sons and daughters at boarding schools 
and colleges—all this required rigid economy on the 
part of every member of the family. Giving six 
children college education kept the parsonage 
keyed to economy for many years. But all this was 
done and no debts left unpaid. Some of his letters at 
this point are illuminating. Two or three are worthy 
of especial note. The first two following were ad- 
dressed to his son Charlie at the Webb School, 
then located at Culleoka, Tennessee, but later moved 
to Bellbuckle, Tennessee: 

YANCEYVILLE, N. C., May 27, 1874. 

My Dear Charlie: I enclose twenty-five dollars, which I 
hope will relieve you in some degree. If you wish to continue 
at Culleoka, I will assume your expenses at least for the next 
session. You will see from the note that I inclose to Brother 
Webb that I request him to let you have what money you 
need to come home on, if you wish to come. I am doubtful 


about your going down into Robeson County at this season. 
I have no liking for it as a place to live. Besides, the places 


In the Circuit Parsonage 157 


that you speak of are already occupied by . I have no 
doubt that you could fill the places better than they are 
filled, as neither of the boys is steady in business—so I 
suppose at least, from what I have heard of them. 

I got a letter from Wilbur by the same mail that brought 
yours, asking for money. I sent him thirty-five dollars yester- 
day. Ishall also send Augustus five. I intended to send him 
ten, but concluded to send you twenty-five instead of twenty, 
as you may need it worse. I got a letter from Augustus and 
Nettie each yesterday, and one from Nettie the mail before. 
Augustus is improving, I hope. He gave me an interesting 
account of the closing of the session of the school last Thurs- 
day. He expressed a wish to engage in some business to 
assist in paying his board. 

I do not wish him to be too closely confined during vaca-. 

‘tion. The mind needs relief from study. I don’t approve of 
students engaging in laborious business during vacation. 
There is little or nothing gained by it in the end. Light and 
cheerful employment would not be amiss. 

It is too late for me to afford you any aid in your debate. 
Besides, I doubt the propriety of relying on anybody but 
ourselves. For the object is to show what we are ourselves, 
though it is highly proper to read on the subject and to talk 
with intelligent persons. Rely upon yourself and remember 
that what you say, though it may appear small to you, yet 
may be more highly estimated by others. And even failures 
are sometimes an advantage in arousing the mind. Write 
soon. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


YANCEYVILLE, N. C., December 15, 1874. 
My Dear Charlie: I send you five dollars for Christmas. 
I sent Mr. Wilkes a draft for forty-five dollars, leaving a 


158 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


balance of fifteen dollars on the board up to December 25. 
James (whom I saw at Conference) said that he had sent you 
money. Let me know how much is now due and how much 
you need. I am assured of getting money for rent on January 
1, 1875, when it is due. I wish to pay Mr. Wilkes all that is 
due. 

We had the most delightful Conference I ever attended. 
Bishop Marvin appears to be the most thoroughly conse- 
crated man I ever saw. He seems to possess the fullness of 
the Divine blessing. 

I have some idea of sending Augustus to Mr. Horner at 
Hillsboro if I ean see how I can meet the expenses. I saw Mr. 
Horner at Oxford, and he said that he took ministers’ sons at 
half price. I do not know whether or not he meant board as 
well as tuition. But from the drift of his conversation at the 
time I am in hopes that he did mean board also. If Mr. 
Horner can get Augustus to apply himself, I shall expect great 
things of Augustus, as he evidently has mind enough to make 
aman. 

We are all very well and always glad to hear from you. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


Dear Nettie: I have written a note to Brother Webb in my 
last letter to Charlie, assuming his expenses, provided Charlie 
wishes to stay, but requested him to become responsible for 
his board for the present. I think that I shall be able to meet 
all necessary expenses for the session, especially if you and 
Laura can manage to take care of Augustus. And I hope that 
I can send some assistance even in that event. We are living 
so economically that I can save a good deal more than here- 
tofore. We are entirely clear of the expense of a cook, and we 
have neither of us bought any clothes of consequence as yet, 


In the Circuit Parsonage 159 


I don’t believe they are all satisfied with our humble style 
of living, but I hear of no complaints. 

I hope for good times. 

Your affectionate PAPA, 

These letters are introduced simply to show how 
closely and carefully John Tillett had to manage his 
finances in order to give his children an education. 

In writing of the educational policy of his father 
as it applied to his own household, Dr. W. F. Tillett 
says: 

He let his children know that this was all that he could ever 
give them—a Christian education. He would loan us some 
money aiter we had received all that he could spare us for our 
education, so that we might go on further than he could take 
us. But it was with the understanding that we were to pay 
back in time to help the next younger child. He encouraged 
us to work and save all we could that we might get the best 
education possible over and beyond his ability to supply us 
with funds. 

In no way did he exercise greater wisdom in our education 
than in selecting a good, though expensive, preparatory 
school, when a cheap one could easily have been found near 
by. 

Such was the policy of this Methodist circuit rider 
who, out of the meager annual stipend of a few hun- 
dred dollars, gave six children, four sons and two 
daughters, a college education. His example is 
worthy of emulation and of unqualified approval by 
all who appreciate the highest and best things of 
life and are wise in the training of their children, 


160 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


But the care and the training of his children were 
not limited to the selection for them of the best 
schools and colleges. For he exercised the same wis- 
dom and conscientious concern in all other respects. 
When away from home, as his letters show, he fol- 
lowed them with fatherly counsel, and when at home 
he inculcated high ideals, enforced a rigid discipline, 
and taught them industry and frugality. 

One summer, while living at Oxford, he rented 
four acres of ground for the boys to cultivate in corn. 
The circuit rider, who possibly knew a great deal 
more about raising boys than he did about raising 
corn, remarked at the time: “They may not make 
much corn, but it will provide heathful exercise and 
serve to keep the lads out of mischief during vaca- 
tion.” 

His letters in 1878, and through after years, when 
no longer subjected to the financial pressure and 
other responsibilities incident to the schooling of 
his children, are characterized by a different tone 
and furnish other windows to the inner chambers 
of his soul. 

The few selected letters offered in the following 
pages are addressed to his daughter Laura—a 
brilliant, ambitious young woman, idolized by her 
father, if such a thing was possible for a man with 
whom conscience at all times was enthroned. This 
highly gifted and remarkably intellectual young 


In the Circuit Parsonage 161 


woman was at the height of her usefulness and of 
her fame as a teacher in Rockingham, North Caro- 
lina, when death overtook her on Good Friday, 1881: 


CARTHAGE, N. C., October 28, 1878. 

My Dear Laura: If I had realized that Professor L—— 
proposed to come to Carthage to see me, I would certainly 
entertain him at any reasonable disadvantage. Still it would 
be a sore mortification for a man of his cloth to come to such 
a place expressly to see such an ignoramus asI am. He has 
been shown the wrong type by somebody. If he admires your 
brilliancy so much that he wants to see your father, I am 
surprised that he ignores the world’s theory in matters of 
native talent. 

I thought that everybody had come to attribute native 
talent in children to their mother and not to their father at 
all. I thought my children held that theory very firmly. 
But whatever theory may be adopted, I could not anticipate 
a visit on the ground of my importance. The little modest 
daisy looks well enough among the weeds and the briers, but 
bring it by the side of some floral splendor, and it creates 
contempt. 

While I rejoice at the reputation you are making with such 
men, I would have you absorb within yourself all the glory, 
and I am not willing to be counted a factor in the problem. 
Nevertheless, if Professor L——or any one else comes at any 
time expressly to see me, however much mistaken and disap- 
pointed he may be in the object of his visit, he shall be enter- 
tained to the very best of my ability. 

Wilbur has had his eyes examined and learns that hewas in 
great danger of losing his eyesight, but hopes the crisis is now 


past. He can’t study much for the present, but he is going 
a 


162 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


to stick to Princeton.* I suppose he can hear lectures. To 
me the prospect before him is rather discouraging. But I 
have given myself and my children to God with willingness for 
any and all of us to suffer whatever is necessary to wean us 
from the world and to fit us for heaven. My prospect for 
heaven is brightening, I trust, as I approach the eternal world. 
I intend by the help of God to keep myself in daily and hourly 
readiness for the fast-approaching event. 

I am still engaged in protracted meetings and shall proba- 
bly continue up to Conference. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


CHARLOTTE, N. C., November 29, 1878. 

My Dear Laura: I promised to write you if I got any in- 
timations about my appointment. Dr. Burkhead asked me 
this morning how I would like to go to Bladen, the circuit 
that Brother Shell had last year, or this year as we may say. 
It is on the Wilmington District, and the parsonage is about 
fifteen or twenty miles from Fayetteville. I raised no objec- 
tion except to the climate, stating that the low country had 
not agreed with me heretofore. He and Brother Shell say 
that the parsonage is located in Blockersville, which is a 
healthy place. I dislike it also on the ground that I am afraid 
that it would be unsafe for the children to visit me during 
their vacation. All that low country is healthy enough dur- 
ing the winter. 

The matter is not at all fixed as yet, but I suppose it would 
be if I withdrew all objections. I do not feel uneasy about 


*Wilbur had just returned to Princeton Theological Semi- 
nary for his second year’s work. He had spent the preceding 
summer vacation preaching on the old Boydton (Va.) Circuit, 
at the close of which he had a painful attack of iritis, from 
which he was now slowly recovering. 


In the Circuit Parsonage 163 


my appointment, as I consider my race pretty well run and 
my expenses will be much less than they have been, so that I 
could certainly get along. I certainly will not interpose any 
objections. I told all the presiding elders whom I talked with 
that I felt a trembling delicacy in touching the ark of the itin- 
erancy lest evil befall me for undue interference. Let us all 
submit the whole matter to the Lord. It may be best for us 
to become weaned from each other before the final separation. 

Dr. Fitzgerald, the editor of the Nashville Christian Advo- 
cate, put in his appearance this morning and in a few words 
won all hearts. He was dressed in North Carolina jeans, not 
black at that, and looked to all intents and purposes like a 
good-looking local preacher from the back country. 

Dr. Alpheus W. Wilson, the Missionary Secretary, spoke 
also with fine effect. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


“T felt a trembling delicacy in touching the ark of 
the itinerancy!’’ Note this eloquent declaration 
of an itinerant Methodist preacher who for forty 
consecutive years has taken the marching orders of 
his Church. This loyalty and obedience on the part 
of her ministers has been from the beginning of the 
Church’s history the explanation of Methodism’s 
most signal victories. 

It seems a pity that Bishop O. P. Fitzgerald’s 
biographer failed to get Mr. Tillett’s picture of him 
clad in “North Carolina jeans” when he visited the 
Charlotte Conference in 1878 and put up an ap- 
pearance akin to a “local preacher from the back 
country”—a good looking preacher, to be sure! 


164 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


How this North Carolina-born editor-bishop would 
have enjoyed this reference to himself if he could 
have come across it before he died! He later became 
a very near neighbor and a very dear friend of the 
son, whose home was in Nashville on the Vanderbilt 
University Campus. 

A letter to Laura, June 26, 1878, indicates that 
Rey. John Tillett, the rugged, plain-spoken Meth- 
odist preacher whose ministry was given almost 
wholly to the yeomanry of North Carolina, had in 
him the very finest appreciation of the cultural life. 
He would doubtless have become a devotee of the 
fine arts if circumstances had permitted such a 
thing. 

Another letter shows that he could detect the 
humor hidden away in boyish pranks, particularly in 
Charlie’s long hike to save railroad fare! Here is 
the letter in question: 


September, 1879. 

Dear Laura: Yours of the 22d came Monday or Tuesday. 
I am delighted to learn that you are having such a splendid 
time. I rejoice at the advantages and intellectual feasts 
that you are enjoying. It certainly must be exhilarating to 
find one’s self in the midst of cultured, progressive spirits 
who show the mellow fruits born of aspirations now stirring 
within us. I have one fear as to the result of the high privi- 
leges you enjoy, and that is that you will be caught up by this 
tide of development and progress and borne above the ideas 
of the patrons of your school so far that only a few will be 


In the Circuit Parsonage 165 


able to appreciate things on the new and improved style. 
Yet I rejoice in these things. 

I have a postal from Charlie announcing his plan to walk 
from Petersburg to Randolph-Macon. He and his foot- 
companion, Gray Carroll, will cut a figure. I hope they will 
not be taken up for vagrants. How things run around in a 
circle! When I wanted him to walk home from Hillsboro he 
thought I had run almost crazy with old-fogyism. Now he 
starts out as quietly as if that had been his notion all his life- 
time. Indeed, if he has to pay his bills along the way, the 
trip will cost more than the cars. 

Write as often as you possibly can and tell Augustus to let 
down his etiquette a little and give me at least a line or two. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


CYPRESS CREEK, N. C., December 12, 1879. 

My Dear Daughter: I got home from Conference Tuesday 
at 2:30 p.M., it being the shortest session ever held by our 
Conference since its organization, and yet everything was 
duly and well considered. 

Charlie was there in the interest of the Duncan Monument 
Fund, but did not accomplish much, there being an unwill- 
ingness to give him a showing before the Conference. 

He was assigned a good home and enjoyed himself very 
much. The young ladies where I stayed all fell in love with 
him and tried to keep him from returning so soon. Dr. Ben- 
nett, the President of Randolph-Macon College, said to me, I 
had reason to be proud of my sons. 

Bishop Wightman seems to be bearing his best fruit in 
his old age. He was master of the situation. I had only a 
short conversation on the cars coming home. He is quite 
communicative. He commends in the highest terms the 
Woman’s Missionary Movement. His wife has organized, 


166 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


I think he said, about seventy Societies. They take up no 
public collections and have no men present at their meetings 
except the pastor at the organization. 

If they go into it at Rockingham, don’t decline to take 
part. It is no compromise of female modesty and refinement. 

You have Brother Hudson for your pastor. He is one of 
our best and most intelligent men. 

Your affectionate PAPA. 


The social, industrial, and political status of 
woman within the last few decades has experienced 
a change that is little short of revolutionary. Forty 
years ago John Tillett, wise father that he was, 
advised his daughter, at that time teaching in the 
town of Rockingham, North Carolina, to join the 
new Missionary Movement among the women of 
her Church and at the same time assured her that 
to join and take part in the Woman’s Missionary 
Society would be “no compromise of her womanly 
modesty and refinement,’’ although evidently, in 
the minds of some of those “called to be saints,” 
it was clearly out of harmony with the Pauline in- 
junction that the women should keep silent in the 
churches. 

But notwithstanding the status of woman and the 
attitude of the public mind toward her, as to her 
rights and privileges in those not far-distant days, 
she now enjoys equal laity rights in the Methodist 
Churches, and, wonderful to tell, she has recently 
become a full-fledged citizen of these United States 


In the Circuit Parsonage 167 


of America. Furthermore, in spite of the dire results 
predicted by the prophets of evil, if the fatal day 
of her emancipation should arrive, the ark of God 
abides in safety, and neither the ballot box nor woman 
herself has yet suffered on account of her larger 
responsibility. 

John Tillett in public life was known everywhere 
as the man ofiron. He wasas braveasalion. Moral 
courage proved to be an inexhaustible asset of his 
sterling manhood. With an unswerving obedience 
he walked in the commandments of his God. He 
stood foursquare to every wind that blew, turned 
neither to the right hand nor the left, and regardless 
of cost walked straight ahead. In Church adminis- 
tration he was, as already pointed out, a strict dis- 
ciplinarian. This was true in his home as well as in 
the administration of the affairs of the Churches over 
which he served as the under-shepherd. 

Mr. Henry Augustus Tillett, the youngest son of 
John Tillett, a lawyer residing at Abilene, Texas, 
in giving recollections of his father, presents an 
interesting picture and gives striking proof of how 
this stern preacher of righteousness, whose uncom- 
promising ethical ideals were so often proclaimed 
from the pulpit, preached the same gospel and en- 
forced the same standards within his own family 
circle. He says: 


168 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


My father’s absolute and uncompromising honesty, that 
went to the very heart of things, impressed itself more deeply 
on me than perhaps any other trait of his character; and he 
squared his own life by those exacting rules which he preached 
to others. 

I particularly recall an incident in my own life that finely 
illustrates his character in this respect and the manner in 
which he imparted his ideals to his children. When I was 
only fifteen years old and a student at the Bingham School, 
I went security for an old fellow who was hauling wood to the 
boys, to enable him to buy a wagon which he very much 
needed. I remember how puffed up I felt when I signed a 
note with him for $85.50, the fellow telling me that Mr. 
White, the merchant, said that if I would go his security he 
would let him have the wagon on credit. I did so, and the 
following September the note fell due, and I had forgotten all 
about it. The fellow, after getting the wagon, absconded 
without paying anything and was never thereafter located. 

I wrote my father about what had occurred and expected 
to be called home probably. Instead, however, he wrote me 
that, while I had played the fool very thoroughly in signing 
that note, there was but one thing left for me to do, and that 
was to pay that note if it took me all the balance of my life 
to do it. It took me over four years to pay that note, paying 
a dollar of my earnings and savings at a time. When I had 
finally completed the payment of the principal, Mr. White 
bragged mightily on me and told me he did not want me to 
pay any interest, though the note called for six per cent per 
annum. I sent the note to my father in evidence that I had 
fully and finally wiped out that debt, but he returned the note 
to me, commending me for what I had paid, but insisting that 
the note called for “six per cent per annum from date until 
paid,’’ and could be said to have been paid only when the 


In the Circuit Parsonage 169 


interest was paid in full; and he directed me, if I wanted to be 
a real man, to send the note back to Mr. White to keep until 
I had paid that interest in full. Amid blinding tears I returned 
the note to Mr. White, and with added years of doing odd 
jobs to earn stray dollars to apply to the payment of that 
interest I finally got it all paid. I thereupon took a solemn 
oath, kissing the Bible, that I would never again go security 
for any man, and from that day to this I never have. My 
father’s position taught me, as nothing else could have done, 
the sacredness of a contract and of one’s obligations to meet 
it when once made. As a result of this experience and the 
lesson learned, I have through all my life not only faithfully 
performed my own contracts to the letter, but have taught 
my children to do the same and have also asa lawyer always 
insisted that my clients do likewise. I still have no patience 
with any man who will not spill his blood, if need be, in an 
effort to keep his contract. I could more easily pay ten thou- 
sand dollars now than I could pay that note for $85.50 then. 
My father insisted that I could not be a real man and a Chris- 
tian gentleman unless I paid that note, with interest. It 
Was an immensely valuable lesson to me all through life. 
There are lots of funny things also that come to me as I 
think of my father in connection with our home life. Things 
like this, for instance, to mention only one: Once, when we 
lived in Oxford, our cow got out of the lot, and we were look- 
ing everywhere for her, when my father looked out of the 
window and spied a cow in the street which be said was ours, 
though I insisted it was not ours, and he told me to drive the 
cow into our lot. He spanked me for my tardy obedience and 
for disputing his word by insisting that it was not our cow. 
I shall never forget his chagrin when the calf refused to go to 
the cow, but it was not until the cow proceeded to horn the 


170 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


calf that he would let me turn her out of the lot. He never 
said a word. 

This last sentence raises the question as to whether 
the preacher was altogether a “good sportsman,” 
and whether he knew how to take a joke on himself 
as well as he did to start what turned out to be jokes 
on others; for his very plain preaching oftentimes 
placed individual offenders whom he described in 
his sermons in such a predicament (the audience 
knowing generally exactly who was referred to) 
that his unique description of the sin and the sinner 
followed the person referred to for a long time and 
became a sort of standing joke on him in the com- 
munity—as, for example, when he described a 
certain young professor and steward who would 
attend dances and card parties, but was himself too 
pious to dance or play cards, as a man like unto 
Peter who “‘warmed himself at the enemy’s fire.” 
But whether John Tillett enjoyed a joke on himself 
or not, it is very certain that he had a keen apprecia- 
tion of the humorous side of life, and few people 
enjoyed an anecdote that excited laughter more 
heartily than he did. Many a winter evening around 
the home fireside was made memorable to the chil- 
dren by the manner in which the different members 
of the family circle told of the funny things that had 
occurred in the family history, and no one con- 


In the Circuit Parsonage 171 


tributed more largely and heartily to this “chil- 
dren’s hour” than did the father. 

But no incident of family history perhaps could 
be told that illustrates more strikingly the stern 
honesty in character and in business which charac- 
terized John Tillett than the incident referred to 
above by his son in connection with the payment 
of that note. Many would doubtless agree with 
the merchant in thinking that a fifteen-year-old 
schoolboy who pays the principal of a security note, 
signed in generous, though ill-advised, sympathy for 
a poor old workingman, ought to be released from 
the payment of any and all interest, and would even 
say that a merchant who would allow a fifteen-year- 
old boy to sign a promissory note for the amount 
named—and this in the absence and without the 
knowledge of his father—scarcely had a right to 
demand the payment even of the principal; and 
feeling thus, they would not agree with the position 
taken by the father with his son, that he could not 
regard himself as a real man and a Christian gentle- 
man unless he paid both the principal and the inter- 
est. But, be this as it may, the incident illustrates 
splendidly the stern honesty that entered into every 
fiber of John Tillett’s nature and characterized both 
his practice and his preaching of ethics in business. 
We cannot have “Iron Dukes,” either military or 


172 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


ministerial, without some stern qualities besides cour- 
age getting into their make-up. 

John Tillett had a conscience for himself and his 
own conduct first and then for others. Some one 
facetiously defined conscience as “one man’s rule for 
another man’s conduct”—very conscientious as to 
how the other man acts! John Tillett put his ethical 
ideals into practice first on himself and in his own 
home and then preached them to others. But he 
believed a preacher to be a prophet of God whose 
business it was to have a conscience for others, for 
the community in which he lives, as well as for him- 
self—and so he cried aloud and spared not when he 
saw things going wrong in the community where 
he lived. 

“It is through the quickening of some intelligent 
and well-balanced individual conscience,” says a 
recent writer, ‘‘that a demoralized public conscience 
is to be awakened and rectified. The leadership of 
the public conscience has ever been given to the 
chosen prophets to whom the word of the Lord came 
with power. In order to lead safely and sanely one 
needs to be not only justified and reénforced by the 
divine, but needs to be genuinely human, and to 
become, in proof of his fitness for leadership, not less, 
but more and more human. The prophet’s con- 
science is set for a beacon and a sign; it is in some 
individual reformer’s soul that the moral conscious- 


In the Circuit Parsonage 173 


ness and conscience of an age have to be concen- 
trated and brought to a burning focus. It is in the 
flaming forth of the prophet’s passion for righteous- 
ness that the public conscience finds its first expres- 
sion; and it is from the illuminated conscience of the 
Lord’s prophets that the light is turned on that 
reveals the depth and the darkness of widespread 
sin and the need of reformation. Every town and 
village needs intelligent men and women who shall 
be for the community a kind of conscience within 
the public conscience; who are quick to discover and 
bold to proclaim any and every moral danger.”’” Thus 
writes Newman Smyth in his ‘“‘Christian Ethics.” 

It would be difficult to find among modern preach- 
ers and prophets a man who met more fully than did 
John Tillett the qualities and conditions of moral 
leadership here described. 

But with it all he had a tender, loving heart. An 
excerpt from a letter of his to his daughter Laura 
gives the reader a glimpse into the inner sanctuary 
of his affections, a holy place closed for the most 
part to even those nearest him. After urging his 
dear daughter to cultivate a religious experience of 
which she might speak with a joyful confidence on 
any occasion and in every presence, he continues: 

I shall never forget how the precious jewel of God’s love 


blazed out beautifully when your dear mother spoke of its 
flames in her heart. Rockingham is to me a mournful spot, 


174 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


but one that can never be forgotten.* Your mother appeared 
to me in a dream some few weeks after she died, the most 
beautiful and lovely being that my eyes ever saw. She was 
surpassed in the beauty and symmetry of her Christian 
character by no one that ever lived in all that region. May 
God help you, so much like her in intellect, to be like her in 
Christian purity and moral beauty. 

In the preceding pages letters have been produced 
that tell their own story of a man “who ruled well 
his own household.” His devotion to wife and chil- 
dren increased, if possible, with the passing years, and 
to his children were given religious and educational 
advantages second to none. He had to figure closely 
to make ends meet, but not in a single instance did 
he express a desire to be rich. On the contrary, he 
did emphatically declare that rich men’s sons had a 
poor chance in life. He was proud of his children 
and rejoiced in the consciousness that he had been 
repaid a thousandfold for all the sacrifices made in 
their behalf. 

In a word, the best part of this circuit rider’s life 
was hidden away in the bosom of his family, and his 
highest and holiest service was not rendered in the 
pulpit, but in the parsonage. 

*The fact that her mother had died in Rockingham and 
was buried there explains this reference—which would have 
been all the sadder could the writer have known that in less 
than two years from the time this letter was written the 


daughter here addressed would also die in this same town 
(on Good Friday, 1881) and be buried beside her mother. 


In the Circuit Parsonage 175 


Up to the present juncture, this story of parsonage 
life has suffered on account of a manifest and grave 
omission, an omission that must not longer be 
deferred, because she who for twenty-one years 
shared the toil and became a partner in every sacri- 
fice of the Tillett household is in all respects worthy 
of equal if not greater honors than the father. 

For the circuit rider’s wife, battling with poverty 
in the meagerly furnished and uncomfortable par- 
sonages where she sheltered as best she could her 
children, carried in her tender heart many a pang 
that her iron-blooded husband could never know. 
But she never faltered. She never even complained. 
“‘She looked well to the ways of her household, and 
ate not the bread of idleness.”” As with the mother of 
Samuel, industry and piety walked hand in hand with 
her. The little gardens for summer vegetables and 
the little garments for her children became the ob- 
jects of her care. To the six sons and three daughters 
that she bore, her knees were altar stairs and her 
motherly heart became a shrine. “Her children rise 
up and call her blessed.” 

“The heart of her husband did safely trust her.” 
In a letter to his wife in 1854, just a little while before 
the birth of her son Wilbur, when she was on a 
visit to her mother, Mrs. James Wyche, in Hender- 
son, North Carolina, her husband writes: “Your 
garden seems to be grieving at your absence, as 


176 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


well as myself. The squash vines are declining and 
dying. Indeed, the garden is a dull spot just now.” 

While not so stated in the letter, the inference is 
that, with her absent, the whole place is a dull spot 
to her husband. 

Mrs. Eliza Wyche Tillett was just as fully devoted 
to the welfare of her children as was her husband. 
She stood with him in every effort to give them 
superior educational advantages, and in all their 
enforced economical administration of household 
affairs she was easily leader. The public ministry 
of Mr. Tillett was an unbroken record of conscien- 
tious devotion to his task, and to the end of her life, 
in 1862, the wife of his youth and early manhood be- 
came the perpetual inspiration of his ministry. 

“She opened her mouth with wisdom; and in her 
tongue was the law of kindness. She stretched out 
her hands to the poor; yea, she reached forth her 
hands to the needy.” 

Her oldest son, James, was absent from home, a 
soldier in the Confederate army, at the time of her 
death. 

In the latter part of 1863, his home being then at 
Roxboro, John Tillett was married a second time, his 
second wife being the sister of his first wife, Mrs. 
Louisa Yancey Speed. Mrs. Speed who had one 
child, a son (named David) at the time of her mar- 
riage to Mr. Tillett, was the widow of an honored 


In the Circuit Parsonage 177 


and useful practicing physician who had died 
several years before. After many years of loving 
and faithful service to and with her husband this 
modest, gentle woman and loving wife, by whom he 
had no children, died at Thomasville, North Caro- 
lina, April the fifth, 1889, and was buried there. 
Mr. Tillett had moved to this place in 1986 after 
retiring from active service and being given a place 
in the ranks of those who in the parlance of Meth- 
odism are designated as superannuates and worn- 
out preachers. He lived quietly, and as comfortably 
as the increasing infirmities of age would permit, 
in the beautiful and healthful village of Thomas- 
ville until the death of his wife, after which sad 
event he lived for about a year in the home of his 
daughter Nettie (Jeannette) wife of Rev. Thomas 
J. Allison, a Presbyterian minister, at that time 
pastor of the Presbyterian Church located in the 
quiet village of Elmwood, Iredell County, North 
Carolina, and later with his son Charles W. Tillett, 
a lawyer living in Charlotte, in whose home, after 
a suffering sojourn of only a few weeks, he died. 
Possibly this is the best place to introduce an 
incident that gives a peep into this itinerant preach- 
er’s home life different from anything yet narrated. 
It is an incident that will take us both backward 
and forward—back to the “Old South” and the 


days of slavery and forward into the “New South” 
12 


178 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


of to-day which rejoices not only that slavery is a 
thing of the past, but that the children of those who 
were once slaves now enjoy, along with the children 
of those who were once slave owners, the privileges 
of American citizenship, chief among which are the 
advantages of Christian education. 


AN IMPRESSIVE INCIDENT—LOOK- 
ING BACKWARD AND FORWARD 


eh 
Ba 


x 


AN IMPRESSIVE INCIDENT—LOOKING 
BACKWARD AND FORWARD 


WE have already made incidental mention of 
John Tillett’s loyalty to the South during the Civil 
War, his oldest son, James Wyche Tillett, being a 
soldier in the Confederate army from the beginning 
to the end of the war. But it should also be stated 
that he was in the first instance opposed to secession 
with its appeal to arms. He favored the South 
remaining in the Union and believed that there was a 
wiser way to settle all points involved in the dispute 
between the North and the South than civil war. 
But being a loyal democrat, he abided by the decision 
of the majority and stood by his own people and his 
own section of the country. In a democracy, 
majorities, whether they be wise or unwise, rule. 

John Tillett became a slave owner first in his early 
youth, as we have seen, by inheritance from his 
father of a slave named Ben, who was, it seems, sold 
by his guardian soon after the father’s death. 
Later. in life, after his marriage, he, again became 
a slave owner though his wife. 

It was quite common in ante-bellum days for 
parents to give a daughter entering into married 

(181) 


182 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


life a slave as part of her marriage dower, and this 
was deemed all the more desirable if the young 
husband did not himself own slaves. As Mr. Tillett 
found the institution of slavery in both the Old and 
the New Testament, with no condemnation of it 
by the inspired writers, he felt that it was not so 
much a sin to be condemned as it was a social evil 
to be borne with, mitigated, and ultimately removed. 
The problem that he immediately faced, however, 
was not the discussion of the abolition of slavery as 
a social institution, but rather of mitigating the 
attendant evils of the institution, of exerting his 
influence upon the owners of slaves to induce them 
to treat their slaves in a kind and Christian manner. 
He believed that the time should and would come 
when the working out of the principles and the spirit 
of Christianity would set all men free. In the mean- 
time he both practiced in his own home and preached 
from the pulpit the duty of treating slavesin a humane 
and Christian manner. His courageous and con- 
tinued insistence upon this resulted in making ene- 
mies of many slave owners who were guilty of the 
inhumanities which he found in many communities 
and which he fearlessly condemned. 

The reaction against slavery has become in our 
day so strong and pronounced, so conscientious and 
humane, that some are in danger perhaps of being 
not altogether just in their judgment of those who 


An Impressive Incident 183 


in a past generation were slave owners—in danger 
of remanding them not merely to a stage of Christian 
culture and enlightenment below that of the present 
day, but to a moral and religious status, that would 
discredit unduly and unfairly the high type of Chris- 
tian character and Christian living that character- 
ized many of those who were owners of slaves in the 
South before the Civil War. That the abolition of 
the system of slavery in America and elsewhere is 
an evidence of moral and social progress in our race 
is recognized nowhere more truly than in the former 
slave-holding States of America. But that we may 
be fair to the Southern slave-owner it is well for us 
to remember that “‘in the earlier days of our Repub- 
lic slavery existed in New England and elsewhere in 
the North, and when the slave owners there, after 
due experiment, found slavery unprofitable because 
of rigorous climatic conditions and growing antipa- 
thy to the institution, they sold their slaves to the 
cotton planters of the South, and the sentiment 
against slavery thereafter rapidly developed through- 
out all the nonslaveholding States. Even Peter 
Faneuil, the founder of the ‘Cradle of Liberty,’ 
after whom the historic ‘Faneuil Hall’ of Boston, 
famous for its antislavery meetings and pronounce- 
ments, was named, was at one time a slave-trader. 
In the meantime it can be said—though it is no 
justification of the institution of slavery to say it— 


184 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


that among all the millions of negroes in the world 
those who live in America to-day, taken as a whole, 
enjoy more of the comforts and blessings and privi- 
leges of life than those found in any other land. If 
the North as well as the South is responsible for 
this blemish upon our history, it is also true that the 
people of the South to-day no less than those of the 
North count it providential that slavery was long 
ago brought to an end and rejoice in the Providence 
that removed this moral incubus and obstacle to 
progress from the body politic of our nation.’’* 
These words, quoted from the son of our “Iron 
Duke,” which point to the fact that back of and 
along with slavery in the South was slavery in the 
North, need to be supplemented and reénforced by 
others from an eminent English author which show 
that back of slavery in America were the slave- 
traders and slaveships of England. “Slavery,” 
says Dr. Robert F. Horton, “was to the Greek 
mind a law of nature. Aristotle had persuaded him- 
self that some men were ‘naturally’ slaves. His 
conscience did not prick him when he defined tools as 
‘lifeless slaves’ and slaves as ‘living tools.’ The 
Jewish law allowed slavery, though it forbade the 
permanent enslavement of a native Israelite. Chris- 
tianity did not abolish slavery; it only claimed the 


*See “The Hand of God in American History,” by Wilbur 
Fisk Tillett. 


An Impressive Incident 185 


equality of slave and master before God. The 
time was not ripe. Our great seamen, like Hawkins, 
carried slaves to America in ships which were named 
after Jesus. Nay, even in 1712, by the Assiento 
Contract in the Treaty of Utrecht, England secured the 
slave trade of the world. The treaty was celebrated 
by Te Deums for which Handel wrote the music.” * 

These historic facts connected with slavery 
furnish a background and a frame in which we 
may place the picture of this conscientious Christian 
master and slave owner of the Old South. Unless 
Methodism had adapted itself to the slave-holding 
conditions existing in the Southern States, there 
would have been no “Iron Duke of the Methodist 
Itinerancy”’ to write about to-day. 

We cannot, perhaps, better bring out John Tillett’s 
attitude toward slavery and his practice in his own 
home of the ideals which he preached than by re- 
producing here the account of an incident that oc- 
curred in December, 1922, at the session of the Fed- 
eral Council held in the city of Indianapolis. 

The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in 
America, it will be remembered, is composed of some 
thirty-five different religious denominations—that 
is, of well-nigh all the Protestant Churches, white and 
colored, in this country. There is perhaps no associa- 
tion of Christian Churches in the world so represen- 


*“ Great Issues,” page 171. 


186 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


tative of modern Protestant Christianity as this 
Federal Council, which has its headquarters in New 
York City and constitutes a kind of religious “‘clear- 
ing house” for the consideration of problems which 
are common to all the Churches. Not only many 
different Churches, but all the different races of 
people in this country who are found in these 
Churches, have their representatives in this large 
and cosmopolitan body of Christian people. 

The remarkable and unique incident to which we 
refer excited deep interest and made a profound, 
impression upon the audience present, growing out 
of the fact that it furnished a striking instance of 
the kindly feeling existing between the white and 
colored races in the older generation whose memories 
go back to the days of slavery. Dr. W. F. Tillett, of 
Vanderbilt University, a son of John Tillett, who 
has been a member of the Council and a regular 
attendant upon the annual meetings of the Executive 
Committee almost from the beginning of the Council, 
arose under a request for personal privilege and, 
coming forward, addressed the Council in sub- 
stantially the following words: 

Before passing from the consideration of the subject of 
Christian education to the next subject on your program, 
I ask that I may be permitted to make a few remarks that are 
personal to myself and one other member of this Executive 


Committee who is present here this afternoon and whose work 
in life, like my own, has long been that of Christian education. 


An Impressive Incident 187 


I am quite sure that the relationship that exists between me 
and this fellow member of the Council to whom I refer is one 
that does not exist between any other two members of this 
Executive Committee, and I am equally sure that this peculiar 
relationship will not likely ever again be duplicated in all the 
future history of the Federal Council. I allude to the fact that 
the son of a former Southern slaveholder and the son of one 
who was formerly owned by him in the days of slavery are 
together here in this room this afternoon as fellow members of 
this Federal Council and of this Executive Committee. The 
member of the Council to whom I refer is Prof. S. G. Atkins, 
the founder and the president of Slater State Normal College, 
of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the most useful and 
successiul of the institutions for the education of negroes in 
North Carolina. 

My father, a Methodist preacher, and my mother were 
slaveholders, as most other people of their class in the South 
were before the close of the Civil War. Servants found neces- 
sary for work about the house were owned as slaves. But 
my father was everywhere recognized as a deeply conscien~ 
tious and truly Christian master, a thing which I suppose 
some people would regard as an absolute impossibility, so 
incompatible do they regard being a Christian and the owner- 
ship of slaves. I remember distinctly how daily at the hour 
of family prayer the slaves that we owned were brought into 
our family room and how they sat listening with us children 
to the reading of the Bible and how they knelt with us at the 
family altar, and our father prayed for them just as he did for 
his own children. He looked after their needs and treated 
them always considerately and kindly. He believed that the 
time would come and should come when they would all be 
free, and he prayed for the coming of that day. Indeed, most 
Southern slaveholders, as I knew them in my childhood, were 


188 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


far from being such odious characters as the slaveholders 
described in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and those whose cruelties 
stirred the righteous soul of Whittier and inspired those pa- 
thetic and passionate poems which in turn stirred the souls of 
others. And never did the sermons of my Methodist preacher 
father flame out in denunciation of wrong more than when he 
preached against cruelties and outrages perpetrated by heart- 
less slave owners on their helpless slaves. 

Among the small number of slaves owned by my father and 
mother in my early childhood the one we thought most of and 
trusted most and loved best was named Allen Atkins. It is 
that man’s son, born in the midst of the Civil War in the village 
of Haywood, North Carolina, who is here to-day as a member 
with you and me of this Executive Committee and as the 
honored representative of one of the Churches constituting 
this Council. He was educated at St. Augustine Normal 
and Collegiate Institute, at Raleigh, which is recognized as 
perhaps the best institution of its kind for the education of 
colored people that is conducted by the Episcopal Church 
in the South. Soon after graduating at this institute Mr. 
Atkins founded the institution at Winston-Salem, now some 
thirty years ago, of which he has always been the head and 
which is now the property of the State of North Carolina. 
The fact that the State should be willing to take over the 
property and retain Professor Atkins so long at the head of it 
is the highest possible compliment to the character of the 
school and to the executive ability and moral worth of its 
president. With this bit of information concerning his father 
and his own achievements, I am now going to ask President 
Atkins to come forward and let me present him to the Council. 


As he came forward Dean Tillett extended his 
hand and said: “If thy heart is as my heart, give 


An Impressive Incident 189 


me thy hand.” Having shaken hands, as the two 
stood before the audience Dean Tillett said further: 


President Atkins, I honor the memory of my father and 

am proud of my descent from him; but I want to say that 
I also honor and revere the memory of your father, Allen 
Atkins. He was a good and true man, and I congratulate 
you both on account of your descent from so good a man and 
also on account of your ascent in that you have risen from the 
conditions of poverty and obscurity in which you were born 
to a large and high place of influence in your race, and this you 
have done not by self-seeking, but by merit and by service to 
your race, your Church, and your native State. And when 
I think of these conditions that you have overcome and what 
you have accomplished, I feel that your achievement in life 
is greater than anything that I can claim to have done. If 
all the members of your race and mine could understand 
each other and feel toward each other as you and I do, there 
would, I think, be no race troubles between the black man 
and the white. It was one of my own former students, Dr. 
W. W. Alexander, who on yesterday spoke to the Council 
and showed us how much he and other leaders of both races 
are trying to do to promote and maintain right relations 
between the two races. I rejoice in the fact that you and I 
are both now free, for the emancipation of the negro race in 
this country meant also the emancipation of the white race; 
for as long as the incubus of slavery lasts the slaveholder and 
the slave are both in bondage and both are inevitably kept 
back from their highest and best racial development. 

The worth and the greatness alike of individuals and of 
races depend not upon the color of the skin, but upon their 
culture, character, and service to mankind; and it is your 
lot and mine as educators of the young men and young women 


190 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


of our respective races so to develop them in intelligence and 
moral character and capacity for efficient service that the 
white race and the black race shall each respect and serve the 
other and both together work in a Christian spirit. and in a 
Christian way to make our country and our nation great, 
not only commercially, but morally and spiritually. Your 
father and mine were both alike willing bond servants of 
Jesus Christ while here in the flesh. They are together now in 
a land where both are free, and I can but think if they look 
down upon us from the glory land they rejoice to see their 
sons associated together in the freedom and fellowship of this 
Council and in the work of Christian education. Thanking 
the Chairman for giving me time to say these words about my 
father and yours and to express to you in this presence my 
high regard for you and the work you are doing, I pray God’s 
blessing upon you and your people. 


Prolonged applause followed these remarks as 
Dr. Tillett and President Atkins returned to their 
seats, and the applause did not cease until President 
Atkins was called back to the platform by the Chair- 
man and requested to say something. His remarks, 
which were brief and delivered with modesty, were 
listened to with deep interest by the audience. He 
spoke as follows: 

This is a gracious moment for me and one of hopeful sug- 
gestiveness for my race. The name of Rev. John Tillett was 
greatly honored and revered in the humble home of my 
childhood, and this gracious consideration of me and of my 
race by his son, Dean Tillett, is in line with my feeling that it 
is desirable to bring out the bright spots in this matter of race 
relations. There are, of course, many dark spots, many 


An Impressive Incident 191 


things to discourage, but I believe in stressing the bright 
spots. 

As a colored man and citizen of North Carolina, I recall 
that the first appropriation made by the State Legislature 
for a school for the special training of negro teachers in our 
State was the small sum of two thousand dollars. Our Gen- 
eral Assembly two years ago appropriated nearly one million 
dollars for this same purpose, and we are hoping that our 
legislature which is soon to assemble will be actuated by a 
like spirit and make a like appropriation to carry forward the 
wise and liberal program now under way for the education 
of negroes in North Carolina. This spirit of liberality and 
good feeling is naturally the fruit of the fine and gracious 
sentiments expressed by Dean Tillett, and such a spirit is 
characteristic of the noble type of Southerner which he 
represents. It is this phase of this whole subject which I 
think should be most of all stressed at this time. To think 
of and bring out continually more and more the bright 
spots rather than the dark ones will tend to make the dark 
spots less dark and the bright spots in our race relationships 
more bright and more lasting. 

I want to say in conclusion that I appreciate very much the 
consideration of Dean Tillett which he has manifested this 
day in this presence toward the son of the man who was once 
owned by his father. 


The incident here narrated is described in the 
January, 1923, number of the Federal Council 
Bulletin, where the remarks of Dean Tillett and 
President Atkins are reproduced. Dr. 8. M. Cavert, 
editor of the Bulletin and one of the General Secre- 
taries of the Council, referred to the incident as 
“the most touching and impressive that he had ever 


192 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


witnessed in any meeting of the Council or in any 
other public gathering.” 

But we must now return from this incident, which 
occurred more than thirty years after the death of 
John Tillett, and follow this humble but honored 
man of God through the closing years and experi- 
ences of his life. Let us trace now the lengthening 
shadows and see the clouds that gather when the day 
is done and the glow of sunset is on them. 


XI 
LOOKING TOWARD THE SUNSET 
13 


XI 
LOOKING TOWARD THE SUNSET 


THE itinerant Methodist preacher after long years 
of service as “a good minister of Jesus Christ” 
comes down to old age occupying a place distinctly 
his own. Those who sing of his worth put a halo 
upon his brow and clothe him with garments of 
praise. But on the stern practical side of life the 
situation is altogether different. This veteran, if not 
relegated to the rear ranks, is transferred to a 
“silent sector,’’ and fresh troops are ordered to the 
“active zone.” Furthermore, when no longer able 
to render active service in the itinerant ranks, or, 
even before the arrival of that undesired period, 
after the strength and vigor of middle life have 
passed, the old minister is often left without a con- 
stituency who may know and appreciate him on 
account of former services. 

The physician once established in his profession 
comes toward the end of his life intrenched in the 
confidence and affections of those to whom as a 
physician he has ministered in other years. The 
lawyer gathers about him the clients and friends 
who in after years, when not quite so vigorous and 
alert, become a big and valuable asset of his. But 

(195) 


196 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


the Methodist preacher transferred from one pastoral 
charge to another reaches old age with no such con- 
stituency as a man in a settled occupation comes 
eventually to enjoy. 

The men and women and children with whom he 
spent his best days as a minister of the gospel and 
who would, if in touch with him, in some measure 
appreciate and minister to their former pastor on 
account of past services are in the time of his old 
age scattered here and there in a score or more of 
different localities. 

Consequently the Methodist preacher brings noth- 
ing with him from preceding years of toil except his 
record, and that record is of little value unless, like 
the athlete on the baseball ‘‘diamond,”’ he can main- 
tain his “batting average.” 

Not only is the old preacher required, regardless of 
former services and past efficiency, to measure up to 
present demands, but he has been left without an 
adequate support in case of his superannuation. 
The Church flings a beggarly pittance to her dis- 
abled and worn-out veterans, while the United 
States government provides a bounteous pension for 
its soldiers and sailors. 

In view of the treatment accorded the aged 
minister by his Church, the following letter from 
Brother Tillett, near the end of his long and faithful 
career, will find a sympathetic response in the heart 


Looking toward the Sunset 197 


of every old preacher who may read it. The letter 
was written a week or so after Conference to the 
presiding bishop. Here is what he writes: 

My Dear Bishop: I am considerably bothered at the idea of 
having two preachers assigned to a charge that paid only $260 
to the preacher last year. If that amount is to be divided 
between me and Brother King, our means of support will be 
very slim. Nevertheless, I shall go to it believing that you 
acted according to the best lights before you. As it is prob- 
able that Brother King is not a claimant upon the funds, I 
write merely to get relief from my embarrassment. If he is 
a claimant, I shall be glad to bring the matter before you, that, 
if possible, some change may be made. If, however, on 
consideration you see no relief in the case, then I shall go 
forward as I have always done, believing there will be grace 
offered as I have need. 


Yours sincerely and affectionately, 
JOHN TILLETT. 


Brother Tillett was laboring under a misconception 
in thinking that his salary was to be divided; for 
such was not the case. But the meager stipend and 
the spirit of the old veteran, even in case a division 
with Brother King should be made, carry with them 
a story that none can mistake. 

With forty-five consecutive years of faithful service 
behind the man who is “bothered” over the prospect 
of dividing a salary of $260 with another needy 
brother, yet with the express determination to “‘go 
forward as I have always done,” this letter, that 
breathes a childlike faith and submission, becomes 


198 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


sublimely eloquent. Its author deserves a place 
among the immortals. 

The one outstanding event of the year in the life 
of the average Methodist preacher is the Annual 
Conference. As the ancient Jew returned to the 
great yearly feasts at Jerusalem, so do these itiner- 
ants go up to their annual gatherings. These Meth- 
odist preachers meet their comrades again, recount 
their victories, saying little of defeat, bring in reports 
of the past year, plan for the next, and as a climax 
to a joyous week receive their appointments for the 
ensuing year. 

To the young man upon the threshold of the itiner- 
ancy, it is an occasion of rare inspirational value. 
To the aged itinerant it becomes a time especially 
for greeting old friends and for the renewal of old 
friendships. 

Of interest at this point, and at the same time 
serving to illustrate the truth just stated, is a letter 
that Brother Tillett wrote his wife from the seat of the 
Conference a few years before he died. The letter 
is typical of the man in his old age. He was alert to 
everything going on about him, immensely interested 
in people, and at all times manifested a beautiful - 
candor and simplicity. This letter describes how 
itinerant preachers, some of them at least, were 
“entertained’’ at Conference gatherings forty years 
ago. If any reader is disposed to criticize the author 


Looking toward the Sunset 199 


for publishing a private letter such as this, we feel 
sure it will not be the itinerant preacher who has 
experiences in being “‘entertained’’ at Conferences 
or elsewhere after the manner here described. We 
omit all identification names and dates. 


My Dear Louisa: I am very happily situated. Have a room 
and bed all to myself. The family is the one that generally 
gave me dinner when I went to the little church to preach on 
week days when we lived at Olin. They live in about the 
same style that they did then. The old man is seventy- 
eight years old and the old woman not much younger; indeed, 
she looks older than the old man. They have a single daugh- 
ter, an old maid, and a son living with them. The son, a 
very clever young man, has a small foundry here. I was 
not their first choice, as I learned from Brother T. A——, 
who was appointed to assist Brother H to find homes 
for the preachers. I was the second choice, but I am glad 
that I got here. Brother F——, my fellow guest, is not here, 
and, if it suits him, I hope he will not come, as I would 
have to share the bed with him. 

When I reached here last night after a difficult search to 
find the place, the appearances were entirely unfavorable. 
I went to bed in sheets not bleached, nor clean, and next 
morning saw that they were old and somewhat ragged. My 
feet got very cold before morning, the covering having no 
blanket and otherwise quite insufficient. I was anxious for 
the young man to come and make me a fire so that I might 
get warm. I felt pretty blue. But I found a heart to pray 
to God for grace to fit me for the occasion and to make it the 
best place for me and the family that I had ever had at a 
Conference, and I felt that the Lord was with me. I was 
called to breakfast a little before I got ready. I found every- 


200 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


thing in the plainest of style. I enjoyed the good sausage, 
but the coffee was weak. I called for the Bible, and we had 
prayers at the table. I felt still better, and to make a long 
story close up, I am now more than pleased. 

It is time for me to be at Conference, but I will write a 
little more. 

Our Conference is moving on delightfully. There is a large 
attendance. The Bishop preached the Thanksgiving sermon 
yesterday. It was a grand success. He is quite an interesting 
man. He appears to be entirely at ease, almost as much so 
as Bishop Marvin. 

I have seen a great many acquaintances who have searched 
me out. The first was Brother John S——. Sister S—— is 
here, but I have not yet shaken hands with her. I saw Sister 
B——. She sat near me at the Thanksgiving sermon. I 
ate supper at Perry T ’s last night. Met Les and Mag 
T. there. But I cannot tell all now. 

Robbers decoyed Brother S. V. H. , one of our pastors, 
into an out-of-the-way place last night, choked him, and took 
all of his Conference money, amounting to almost $400. It 
has created a tremendous sensation. 

My money is all handed over, and I have now but little left. 
T see nothing in the way of being sent back to the Alamance 
Circuit. 

Affectionately, JOHN TILLETT. 

P.S., 4 P.M.—Brother H——has received a note through the 
postoffice telling him where to find his pocketbook and papers, 
but no money. I have met with a great many friends who 
seem to be glad to see me. There is now no doubt of my 
being returned to Alamance Circuit. oey a 


In November, 1884, Brother Tillett attended his 
forty-seventh consecutive session of the North 


Looking toward the Sunset 201 


Carolina Conference—a most remarkable record— 
and it was his last. His first Conference was at 
Salisbury; his last at Wilmington. From the Wil- 
mington Conference he received the appointment 
to his last pastoral charge, the Pleasant Garden 
Circuit, just south of Greensboro. 

In a letter to his wife from Wilmington, while 
attending this his last Conference, the old circuit rider 
shows a deep interest in his prospective charge. 


WILmincTon, N. C., November 29, 1884. 

My Dear Louisa: There is no doubt that we shall be read 
out for Pleasant Garden. The preacher that was there will 
be my successor on the Alamance Circuit. He has been in 
Conference only one year. He is said to be a pretty fair 
preacher. He is, I think, a graduate of Trinity College and a 
nephew of Professor Johnson at Trinity. He does not know, 
I suppase, where he is going, and I am not at liberty to talk 
to him about the parsonage till the appointments are read 
out. But then I expect to have a talk with him and find out 
as much as I can about the parsonage and circuit. 

Charlie came this morning and stopped at Mr. Kingsbury’s. 
I was there when he came, about half-after 8 o’clock. I ate 
dinner there to-day. They had a splendid dinner, and the 
family was cheerful and full of talk. Charlie hired a horse 
and buggy and took me over to the Sound this afternoon. 

I think that we shall get our appointments Tuesday night 
and that I shall reach home Wednesday night. I think that 
I can arrange with Brother Johnson to stay at the shops as 
long as we want to if we want to stay a week or two. And if 
we want to move immediately we can do so. 

Your affectionate HUSBAND. 


XII 
LAST DAYS OF THE IRON DUKE 


XII 
LAST DAYS OF THE IRON DUKE 


THEODORE ROOSEVELT, while President of the 
United States, paid the Methodist circuit rider the 
following tribute: 


The Methodist Church plays a great part in many lands, 
and yet I think I can say that in none other has it played so 
great and peculiar a part as here in the United States. Its 
history is indissolubly interwoven with the history of our 
country for the sixscore years since the constitutional con- 
vention made us really a nation. Its essential democracy, 
its fiery and restless energy of spirit, and the wide play that it 
gave to individual initiative, all tended to make it peculiarly 
congenial to a hardy and virile folk. The whole country is 
under a debt of gratitude to the Methodist circuit riders, 
the Methodist pioneer preachers, whose movement west- 
ward kept pace with the movement of the frontier; who shared 
all the hardships in the life of the frontiersman, while at the 
same time ministering to his spiritual needs and seeing that 
his material cares and the hard and grinding poverty of his 
life did not wholly extinguish the divine fire within his soul. 

Most aptly has Roosevelt, the great American, 
both President and historian, described the early 
Methodist circuit rider, and with equal accuracy has 
he estimated the character and value of his ministry. 

Francis Asbury, with his genius for discipline and 
with the intrepid spirit of the pioneer, became the 
father of the itinerant ministry, as we have it in 

(205) , 


206 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


American Methodism. He raised up a native 
ministry, inspired it with his spirit of sacrificial 
service, mounted it on horseback, and led to the 
conquest of a virgin continent. 

The necessary restrictions and hardships of a 
pioneer people became the daily experience of the 
pioneer preacher. And these circuit riders, who 
feared not the tomahawk of the savage and who 
defied the storms of winter and gladly shared all the 
hardships of the early settlers in America, not only 
laid the foundations of Methodism in this Western 
world, but became effective as builders of an empire. 
Armed with Bible and hymn book, these knights of 
the saddlebags rode to conquests such as mailed 
warriors never dreamed of. 

These men had upon them no vows of poverty, 
yet one of their favorite songs began: 

“No foot of land do I possess, 
No cottage in this wilderness.” 

But, like the ancient patriarchs who dwelt in 
tabernacles, these Methodist circuit riders, prophets 
of righteousness and evangelists of the grace of God, 
looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. 

One who saw the Methodist itinerancy at closer 
range and understood the itinerant preacher and 
his value to state and nation even better than did 
Theodore Roosevelt from whom we have just 
quoted has described the pioneer preacher and cir- 


Last Days of the Iron Duke 207 


cuit rider of early Methodism in terms which are 
none the less true and accurate because they glow 
with rhetoric and burn with the passion of an orator 
whose eloquence met the demands of a great oc- 
casion. The following words are taken from the 
fraternal address of Dr. (later Bishop) John C. 
Kilgo, delivered before the General Conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church which met at Los 
Angeles in 1904: 


What a mighty man the itinerant was! Free from pompous 
pretense, unheralded by the blast of trumpets, lacking the 
credentials of earthly courts, without the equipage of wealth, 
not certified by lordly society, this man, the Methodist 
circuit rider, stands the peer of any man or set of men who 
helped to build this great republic. The desire and expecta- 
tion of worldly gain did not mar his motives. He had no wish 
for social applause; he sought no indulgence at the hands of 
patronizing luxury and did not crave personal comforts; 
but, like a man upon whom rested the prophetic commission 
of the eternal throne, he went to his task as one bent on a 
desperate mission. Serenity was on his face, a heavenly 
radiance was in his eye, the tone of eternal authority was in 
his voice, and the strength of a divineinspiration steadied his 
step. 

He obeyed the behest of Heaven and went everywhere, 
threading tangled wildernesses, climbing over wild mountains, 
and penetrating dense swamps; and wherever he went he 
delivered the word of God with miraculous power. He did 
not peddle indulgence to sensuous society, he made no con- 
cessions to popular evils, he softened no word of truth in 
order to promote his personal comfort, nor was he a mendicant 


208 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


of any kind of worldly favors. He was a prophet sent of God, 
and the tone of Sinaitic thunder was in his words while he 
waged unceasing war against sin in all forms and in all 
places. He arbitrated no differences between righteousness 
and sin, between God and Satan, but proclaimed an eternal 
antagonism between them never to be adjusted by any 
other method than by the everlasting defeat of evil. He has 
left his record in an eternally established boundary which 
ecclesiastical diplomats of these last times seem to think 
extends far beyond the property rights of God and should be 
drawn in to suit the convenience and commerce of Satan. 


In the very front rank of these iron-blooded 
itinerants who wrought with such dauntless heroism 
we place the lad that in his early years battled with 
poverty, as his seafaring ancestors had batiled with 
tide and storm. In love with books when books were 
few, and dreaming of the best in education, which 
dream became the inspiration of his life, first for 
himself and later for his children, the youth from the 
backwoods of Camden County finally came to possess 
a college diploma, which in that day was well-nigh 
as difficult to obtain as the crown of a king. Thus 
equipped, this youth of high ideals entered the Meth- 
odist itinerancy to give half a century to the service 
of God and humanity. And in all that long term of 
service he never in a single instance failed to leave 
the impress of his life and his labors upon the com- 
munity and the Churches where he served “as a good 
minister of Jesus Christ.” 


Last Days of the Iron Duke 209 


His ministry began twenty-one years before the 
outbreak of the Civil War and continued practically 
the same length of time beyond the close of that 
bloody conflict. 

John Tillett, therefore, was in the midst of his 
ministerial life when the war came on, learned all 
about those terrible years and also about the event- 
ful decade and more that followed. And there is no 
estimating what value to the Church and to society 
at large were the services of a minister like John 
Tillett through that period of lawlessness and moral 
chaos. He not only preached righteousness with the 
vigor of Amos of old, but he taught men respect for 
law by enforcing the statutory requirements of his 
Church and also by demanding that men every- 
where live up to the legal standards which had been 
set for their observance. North Carolina shall ever 
be debtor to this matchless circuit rider, and uni- 
versal Methodism shall continue to be blessed 
through the gift of his son, Dean Wilbur F. Tillett, 
of Vanderbilt University, for more than forty years 
the instructor of young gospel ministers who now 
grace that high calling in every part of the earth. 

On the fourth Sunday in November, 1885, Mr. 
Tillett preached two funeral sermons, which were 
his last. That night he was taken violently ill with 


acute bronchitis. Typhoid fever developed, and he 
14 


210 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Ttinerancy 


never fully recovered from this attack, which lasted 
for weeks. 

The Annual Conference met in Charlotte on Wed- 
nesday following his attack of Sunday night. Being 
ill at home, he could not attend Conference, which 
was the first session that he had missed in the long 
course of his itinerant life. 

He was appointed by the bishop to the Pleasant 
Garden Circuit for another year, but did not re- 
cover sufficiently to take up his work. At the follow- 
ing Conference, in 1886, the name of John Tillett 
went to the roll of the superannuates and his re- 
markable career as an active itinerant came to a 
close. 

Men about Pleasant Garden now who were boys 
in 1885, when Mr. Tillett closed his active ministry 
on that circuit, remember “Uncle Tillett” as a 
rugged, zealous old preacher, weighted down with 
the infirmities of age, but a mighty man in prayer 
and a powerful preacher. 

In 1886 the superannuate moved from Pleasant 
Garden to Thomasville, North Carolina, where he 
dwelt in a modest home of his own till the death of 
his wife, in April, 1889. Following the death of 
his wife he lived one year with his daughter, Mrs. 
T. J. Allison, at Elmwood, North Carolina, where 
her husband was the pastor of the Presbyterian 
Church. In April, 1890, Mr. Tillett moved to Char- 


Last Days of the Iron Duke 211 


lotte, North Carolina, where the remainder of his 
days on earth were spent in the home of his son, 
Hon. Charles W. Tillett, a prominent attorney of 
that city. 

His life, from the time of his attack in November, 
1885, to which reference has already been made, to 
the time of his death, almost five years later, was 
one of great bodily suffering. He never recovered 
from the prostration that accompanied and followed 
this serious illness. Yet he bore his suffering with 
great fortitude and in it all was patient, desiring 
above everything else that God should be glorified. 
“His peace was as a river, and his conscious accept- 
ance with God through Jesus Christ and his joyful 
hope of heaven constituted for years his normal 
condition’’—so wrote one who knew him well. 

Dr. W. F. Tillett, who was with him for two weeks 
before his death, writes: ‘‘Never did any one long 
for and welcome death more eagerly than he. The 
_ future was as bright and clear to him as the noonday 
sun; death had not a single terror for him. The 
last passage of Scripture he was known to quote 
(and that to himself when he thought no one was 
near) was, ‘Glory to God in the highest, peace on 
earth, good will toward men.’ This he repeated 
twice.” 

On July 17, 1890, with his sons Wilbur, Charles, 
and Augustus at his bedside, this noble old Roman, 


212 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


whom we have called ‘The Iron Duke of the Meth- 
odist Itinerancy,” died as he had lived, brave, 
courageous, unafraid. To him should be applied the 
familiar and triumphant words of the Apostle to the 
Gentiles, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished 
my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there 
is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” 

The body of this fearless and consecrated Meth- 
odist preacher rests in Elmwood Cemetery, Char- 
lotte, North Carolina, and upon the granite shaft 
that marks his grave is inscribed, 

REV. JOHN TILLETT 
Born NOVEMBER 23, 1812 
Diep JuLy 17, 1890 
For More THAN Firty YEARS AN ITINERANT PREACHER 


In THE N. C. CONFERENCE OF THE METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH. 


“Servant of God, well done; 
Rest from thy loved employ; 
The battle fought, the victory won, 
Enter thy Master’s joy.” 

Lord Wellesley, the Iron Duke of England, after 
his achievements at Waterloo and on other fields 
of battle, was voted by Parliament an annuity of 
ten thousand pounds—fifty thousand dollars. This 
was afterwards changed to an outright gift of four 
hundred thousand pounds, to which was added 
later two hundred thousand pounds that he might 
purchase for himself and family a princely mansion 


Last Days of the Iron Duke 213 


and estate where he could live in a manner befitting 
the military hero that he was. When he died they 
laid his body to rest with the highest possible 
military and civic honors underneath the dome of 
St Paul’s Cathedral in London; and there, along 
with the body of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect 
and builder of this splendid temple which is the 
pride and glory of England, it awaits undisturbed 
the progress of human history and the achievements 
of the English nation which were made possible by 
his brilliant service on the field of battle. As the 
world counts greatness and gives its honors, there 
is no greater name in all human history than that 
of the Duke of Wellington, and it is impossible for a 
nation more highly to honor the name and memory 
of a son, a citizen, a soldier, than the English nation 
has honored and still honors its great “Iron Duke.” 
The “Iron Duke of the Methodist itinerancy” 
must be studied in contrast rather than in comparison 
with this mighty English man of war. There was 
“iron” in the blood and in the character alike of 
these two men. But military and moral heroes 
must needs be weighed in different scales. There 
are heroes of peace, who save and build, as well as 
heroes of war, who destroy and kill. “Every man,” 
St Francis of Assisi once said, “is just so great as 
he is in the eyes of God—and no greater.” And 
an even better and greater judge of greatness than St, 


214 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


Francis has said that he that would be greatest 
among men must be servant of all—has said that 
loving, unselfish, altruistic, self-sacrificing service to 
the largest number of one’s fellow men is the real 
measure and proof of true greatness. It is when 
judged by this standard and weighed in these 
scales that the “Iron Duke of the Itinerancy” is 
seen to be truly great in the eyes of God and right 
worthy to be numbered among earth’s moral heroes. 

When this man of mighty achievements in the - 
Methodist ministry had made good and had won 
victories at not a few spiritual “Waterloos,” the 
Church recognized and rewarded his splendid service 
by increasing his salary from two hundred and fifty 
dollars to five hundred dollars a year, and then 
later to seven hundred and fifty, and finally it 
reached the high-water mark of twelve hundred 
dollars a year—thereafter declining until it got 
back and down again to two hundred and sixty 
dollars a year. When he became a “worn-out 
superannuate,” and they found he had no resources 
of his own, they placed him among those receiving 
the largest amount which was then awarded to any 
superannuate in his Conference—a stipend of some- 
thing over two hundred, but never as much as three 
hundred dollars. And did any man ever hear him 
complain? Never once. In entering the itinerant 
ministry he had already counted the cost and had 


Last Days of the Iron Duke 215 


taken its vows upon him—and these vows he in- 
terpreted as meaning that he must go cheerfully 
wherever sent and perform faithfully whatever 
work was assigned him and receive uncomplainingly 
whatever financial compensation was given him by 
the people whom he served. Here, in part at least, 
was the “hiding of his power.” 

Nor was John Tillett alone in thinking and living 
and working as set forth in these pages. It is not 
because he stands out single and alone in his char- 
acter and ministry, but rather because he furnishes 
a typical and ideal example of the itinerant Meth- 
odist minister of the nineteenth century taken at his 
best, that we have desired to tell Methodist preachers 
and laymen of this new day what manner of man he 
was. If virile and heroic qualities that entered into 
his character do not make it fitting to call him the 
“Tron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy,” what 
then could? 

Not underneath any stately dome like that of St. 
Paul’s Cathedral, or in any consecrated crypt of 
Abbey like that of Westminster, where kings and 
high prelates sleep, does the body of this Methodist 
circuit rider rest, but, as is befitting so simple and 
unpretentious a servant of Jesus Christ and his 
Church, out under God’s blue sky, the dome not 
made with human hands, in Elmwood Cemetery, 
in a grave unadorned save by a modest shaft of gray 


216 The Iron Duke of the Methodist Itinerancy 


granite, that tells the passer-by when he was born 
and when he died—there his body rests in the heart 
of the Southland that he loved and in the midst of 
men and women to whose fathers and grandfathers 
he preached a whole gospel, as he understood it, 
and kept back nothing. 

That the memory of such a man as he was may 
not altogether perish from the earth these pages 
have been written; and we cannot think that any 
one who has read them will fail to recognize and 
approve the posthumous title which we have given 
to this stern, conscientious, heroic preacher of 
righteousness—“the Iron Duke of the Methodist 
Itinerancy.” Peace to his ashes! All honor to his 
memory! 


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